Midnight Lady
by bhut
Summary: Post S2 AU. A surprising talk between Connor and Helen of all people steers the ARC into a new direction and new adventures. Currently on HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**Midnight Lady**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: this story contains lyrics from Chris Norman's Midnight Lady._

"Sob".

For the last two decades – or even more so, given how non-linear and irregular her life had become – Helen Cutter was a survivor, able to identify many sorts of sound and to detect even more. That said, the sound of a grown man crying was still disturbing to her: her father had not been a particularly manly man, but neither was he overly emotional, able to bend but not break, unlike her husband – well, ex-husband if she ever got down to a divorce.

"Sob."

Helen Cutter was not a kind woman; in fact, quite a few people, especially at the ARC, would not have considered her particularly humane. Of course, there were others, like Berenice Ptolemy, the princess of Egypt, and Lucrezia Borgia who would heartily disapprove, but they were not here right now; in fact, other than Helen herself, there was no one to console the crier – if she chose to.

"Chirp."

Startled, Helen looked down at the _Compsognathus_ that she was still holding. The little bastard had given her quite the run around, stealing her time anomaly manifestation device before fleeing to the modern world – and if anyone from the ARC were to encounter her, even now, they would blame her, and she was at a disadvantage.

"Sob."

Something stirred in Helen's chest at _that_ sound: something raw and painful, something that was actually hurting her, urging her to flee once again into the past until her plan was complete – but there was still enough of her old self to pause and go to face that sound face on, come Hell or high water, whatever came first.

_I've got many ways, to reach tomorrow_

_Love will always grow, no pain, no sorrow_

"Sob."

Helen stared. The crier was her ex-husband's little sycophant, Something-Something Temple. Or Church. She honestly did not know, save that there was a C in there somewhere.

Then again, that was irrelevant; the crux of the matter was that he was crying, and her husband was nowhere in sight. Typical.

"What's typical?" the sycophant asked, uncurling from his semi-fetal position.

"That you're both close to Nick and crying," Helen said matter-of-factly before pausing. "Wait. Did I say that aloud? Must be more tired than I thought."

"Helen." The sycophant tried his trademark glare at her, but even in its natural state it was pathetic; now, with his bruises-

Wait. The bruises were new. "Who did such a half-arsed job of coloring you, kid?" Helen asked, as her inner woman was struggling to reach out to the young man and treat him for his injuries.

"Nobody," the latter looked away, embarrassed at Helen both being herself specifically and a woman in general. "It was my own fault. Now go away before I call Nick..." he trailed away, as he apparently realized that either Nick was out of reach or he did not want to talk to the older man.

"Come on," Helen wheedled, only in part from curiosity. "I'll let you hold the dinosaur if you tell me what has happened!"

"Um," the sycophant has only now noticed the _Compsognathus_ that Helen had been holding all this time. "Why do you have a dinosaur?"

"I had to catch it before it stranded itself in time – here or elsewhere – and changed history as we know it," Helen shrugged. "Honestly. So, do we have a deal?"

"Yes," her interlocutor nodded, his spirits falling once more. "Why not?"

_Magic touched my life, I'm still dreaming_

_Anything before has lost its meaning_

If Connor had heard from someone, anyone, that once upon in his life it will be Helen bleeping Cutter who will appear to give a damn about him, he would have thought that they were crazy. His life being what it is, though, it turned out to be just that crazy.

"It all began earlier today, with the time anomaly," he began, "but you probably already know of this-"

"That depends. Are we talking about the Solnhofen lagoon in the late Jurassic, over 150 MYA? You know – pterosaurs, the first dinobird _Archaeopteryx, _and small dinosaurs like this one?"

"Um, no," Connor replied, sounding almost like his old self (at least to his own ears). "This was quite a bit later, late Cretaceous or so."

"Ah! The giant meteorite, right? That is where most Cretaceous time anomalies tend to generate, for some reason."

"Maybe," Connor almost smiled at Helen's friendly-teasing tone before he had caught himself. "We didn't see it, but a dinosaur did come through. A juvenile T-Rex, maybe, but I am not so sure-" he twitched, as much more unpleasant memories came to his mind.

"And?" came the patient question.

"Well, for its size it was fast and quite smart," Connor began to muse, "and its teeth weren't like that of a T-Rex. Maybe it was an _Albertosaurus_ or a _Gorgosaurus_ instead... never mind," he paused, expecting a rebuke.

None came.

"Yes, well, anyways," Connor began to rush, feeling tears come unbidden to his eyes once more, "it didn't go down fully to plan, and a couple of our soldiers got chomped. See, this dinosaur, it was smaller than a T-Rex, maybe half its size, tops, but it was fast, manoeuvrable, almost like a big cat, and seemed to really enjoy our taste – or maybe it just was that sort of a snaky bastard."

"But you got it back in?" Helen asked, quietly, with an odd note of worry in her voice.

"What?" Connor asked, before he remembered. "Oh! Yes! Well, it was not so much our doing as it charging Becker and me as we had an argument before the time anomaly and we got out of the way just as it went into the time anomaly and it closed."

"And that's when you got hurt," Helen said matter-of-factly, following her intuition.

"Yes," Connor said forlornly.

"I have one more question."

"Shoot."

"Who's Becker?"

_You think love is a game, love is emotion_

_Endless and so deep, always in motion_

There was a pause as Temple stared at her with an almost farcical facial expression before it was shifted into something else. "Oh right, you never came back after Stephen died," he said, sounding more like his old self for the first time this night. "Becker is his replacement and the head of our new security forces. His solution is to shot everything that moves and is out of time."

"And how does Cutter take it?" Helen softly asked, thinking of her husband's more humanitarian public side, desperately trying _not_ to think of Stephen. "What does he say?"

"Nothing!" Temple bitterly replied. "After Stephen died, it's like he's no longer quite there! He is Cutter, but he is vapid now, and his hair – do not make me start! He's just no longer the same Nick Cutter that was when Stephen was alive, and it's your fault entirely!"

_My fault entirely._ Now it was said aloud, in the open, as a challenge that Helen had been expecting all this time: unlike her, Nick was straightforward and direct as a mountain crag, even if just as inert.

Yet it was not Nick who was confronting Helen with this, but his sycophant, whom Helen did not really give much thinking or even time of a day. She did not have to explain herself to him, she could evade him, she could fool him, she... did not give a damn. The time to face this challenge was either now or never.

"You're correct!" she said faux-brightly. "You're absolutely correct! This is my fault! If I have been just a bit quicker the damn raptor would not have caught me and Stephen would still be alive! I should not have panicked – I have dealt with their kind before and usually was not afraid of their teeth and talons. But Nick was there, Stephen was there, and if anyone can get under my skin, it was they. So yes, I messed up, Stephen is dead, and I am alive, though I have no reason to live anymore. So, my question now is – if I commit suicide, will anyone give a fuck? Now that Stephen is dead and Nick got his Jenny."

There was another pause as her interlocutor looked at her, then at the small dinosaur. "Don't even think about releasing it," Helen snapped. "Size for size, it got a bite as powerful as that of the T-Rex and possibly even more painful."

"Got it," Connor said quickly, wincing. "Ow!"

"Must've been some fall that gave you so many bruises," Helen said, eager to change the topic now.

"It wasn't the fall," Connor said mournfully, "it was Becker. He is the bloke who got Stephen's job, but he is hardcore military, and he is no fun at all. Of course, with Cutter being not quite there, Jenny having eyes only for him, and Sarah being the new kid herself, it's only Abby who sticks up to Becker, really. I tried, and he got rough, and Cutter just ignored it. It's like his soul is gone or something..."

There was a pause, and then Helen decided to do the right thing. "Maybe he has. I mean, for me, Stephen was... special-"

"Whoa, whoa! Helen, I hate you, but suicide isn't the way-!"

The sycophant remembered her name and she didn't know his? Annoying. "As I was saying, young Temple, Stephen was special for me, but for Stephen, Nick was special, though the rock hard Catholic that he was, he didn't admit it, and now – regrets it."

There was a pause as Connor clearly thought it over, dinosaur still in hand. "Interesting point. What should I do, though?"

"You're Nick's – friend, right?" Helen decided not to call him a sycophant this time – it would spoil the mood. "Try to get him to talk, to get therapy or something. Ask Jenny to help. She's in love with him – maybe..."

"Got it," Connor said brightly, "and-"

"You can keep the dinosaur – just remember that although it's the size of a chicken, it still eats meat, so keep your fingers away from it."

"Thanks! But, I meant, that if you ever feel alone and anything – please come over to my place. I mean, it's mine and Abby's place, but Abby won't be jealous of you..."

"'Cause I'm _old_?" Helen asked wryly, in a teasing tone, but Connor turned red.

"Um, er, can I have another one?" he stuttered

"No," Helen shook her head. "I'm keeping this one. So keep your fireplace warm, because one night when it is cold and raining, I just might come over. Until then – see you around." Helen grinned, activated her time anomaly manifestation device and left.

_I feel the magic of your charm, oh,_

_you're tearing me apart _

After Helen left (and how did she do it? What was that device of hers?), Connor just silently stood there. Of all the familiar people today (well, technically tonight – or was it?), his friends at the ARC were distant (increasingly distant), and Helen Cutter, who has been their archnemesis ever since the ARC got together, was understanding – and that was disturbing.

Come to think of it, however, James Lester was also understanding – and that was almost as disturbing as Helen. Connor Temple's life has really turned strange, and the time anomalies were not even involved.

"So what do I do now?" Connor asked rhetorically.

"Chirp."

Connor blinked and looked at the chicken-sized dinosaur, who stared back with its beady eyes – somewhat how Becker did it, only not. "Right, let's go and talk to Lester about getting you a new home – and then talking to him about Cutter," Connor said brightly. "Glad to see things looking up at last!"

Without a warning a torrential downpour soaked both Connor and the dinosaur to the bone, but Connor just shook his head. "God still hates me, though, but that's nothing new. Warm bunk at the ARC, here we come!"

End


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Although this was a topic that Abby Maitland did her best to avoid, but lately she found unable to do just that – have a confrontation.

Make no mistake, when it came to dinosaurs, sabre-toothed cats or giant parasitic worms from the pre-Cambrian epoch, Abby was all for a confrontation and for some gratuitous ass kicking (or face-kicking, as in the case of the Mer). When it came to the people, however, she was not as eager.

Well, captain Becker, recently assigned to the ARC as the chief of its security detail, could have disagreed, but for Abby safety of animals _was_ very important, and besides, Becker was the new guy, so Abby could be less than nice to him (to put it lightly). However, when Connor began to speak up to Becker, things became different. While Abby was grateful for Connor sticking up to her, she wasn't sure that he was doing it for the same (more or less noble) reasons that she did, or because that he felt that he needed to be a macho man after Stephen died.

Men... if Abby could, she would have to confess that she understood them far more poorly than how she understood lizards, let alone Rex. Sure, she understood that some of them needed to beat their chest and to snarl to show their position on top of the hierarchy...and Abby did not found this to be too attractive. Sure, being a coward was bad, but being an overbearing 2-D macho as Becker appeared to be was not an improvement either.

And now Connor appeared to be following in the path of Becker – and Stephen. Abby had never really liked Stephen, other than a friend, but she still felt his loss keenly, and she suspected that in case of Connor, the situation was even worse: Stephen was the closest person to Connor in terms of age and gender combined, and Abby was sure that her not-quite-boyfriend looked up at the deceased, and with him gone...now what? Follow Becker's machismo? Not if she had anything to say about it!

But without Becker, who was around for Connor to be influenced by? Cutter? In private, Abby had to admit that ever since Stephen died, the professor had become somewhat diminished and distanced from the rest of the field team – rather how Jenny was until Leek's last kidnapping attempt... and still was, actually, without Cutter around. And that meant that the only man left around was—

"Lester!"

"Maitland!"

"Oh? Oh! Oh, um, I was just thinking about you and you startled me – sir?"

"...I suppose that I should be flattered that a young woman is thinking about me in her spare time, but this isn't going to work," Lester said as after a pause. "That said, this isn't going to work – I'm not that sort of an employer, Daphne. And, in any case, there has been a report of a time anomaly manifesting itself at a collision center or a similar place – step to it! Becker and Shaggy are waiting for you."

"Shouldn't Sarah come with us too?"

"Ever since Cutter went away to get help, alongside Lewis, Page has to cover the scientific research, so not this time."

Abby got up, but stopped. "Cutter went away _where_?" she asked.

"Your boyfriend will have to explain this to you," Lester said in an end-of-discussion tone of voice.

"Connor's not my-" Abby snarled.

"Go."

/

Needless to say, when Abby arrived at the ARC van, she was not happy. "What has happened to the professor?" she snarled at Connor even as she got into the van. "What did you and Lester cook up?"

"Nothing!" Connor protested. "I, just, few nights ago told Lester that I was worried about Cutter – how he dealt with Stephen's death and all. Lester noticed that, called Cutter to his office – while I was still there – and when Cutter arrived, Lester sent him on a vacation to get some therapy. Jenny was also on it – she is to make sure that Cutter does get therapy-"

"You're babbling," Becker interrupted for the first time – i.e. this was the first time he actually spoke to Connor _or_ Abby directly ever since there was that annoying incident with the juvenile T-Rex. "Can you please stop babbling?"

Familiar ire rose in Abby's stomach – whom did Becker think he was? – but then she realized that if she started on it, Connor would most likely join in, and that wasn't actually what Abby wanted, so she took a deep breath and stopped.

Silence fell, and an uncomfortable one at that. Connor, it should be noted, was never at home with silences, especially uncomfortable ones, and so he decided to fill it.

"So, Becker," he paused and plunged on. "Why are you so gung-ho about this? I mean – were, since after couple of your people got eaten by that _Albertasaurus_ it's obvious why-"

"Now you're babbling!" Becker said angrily. "I've got my reasons-!"

"Are we going the right way?" Abby piped-up – she could not help herself, really.

"Yes!" Becker snapped, as everyone in the vehicle suddenly noticed the rapidly approaching lights and siren of a police car. "Now hold on – and let me lose this turkey!"

Before either Connor or Abby could protest that that was the police that Becker was talking about, the ex-soldier put on the gas and with a burst of speed left the police far behind them.

/

Officer Quinn felt his eyes narrow and his already bad mood – deteriorate. He had no idea just who that drag racer was, and why he was driving a van rather than a sports car, but he was not going to get away from him.

A small voice whispered in the back of Danny's brain that this man (or woman) had no connection to Patrick's disappearance all those years ago, but Danny did not care and did not listen. Instead, he put on the gas as well.

He never noticed that at least one car was following him and his quarry as well...

/

"Whoa! That was fast!" Connor exhaled when both he and Abby discovered that they could breathe once again. "Where did you learn to drive like that?"

"Before I joined the army," Becker shrugged. "I guess I was just looking for an excuse to do it here once more."

Connor nodded, satisfied with this answer. Abby, however, was not.

"Right, and this had nothing to do with you not wanting to talk to us, eh?" she asked brightly.

"You got me," Becker nodded. "Now shall we go and get this over with? I figure out if we do it all quickly, then we'll have less time to get onto each other's nerves and all."

"That's not true!" Connor spoke up suddenly. "We may not like each other, but we don't have to avoid each other either. Why can't we try to be friends? I mean that surely you've got a reason why you didn't like animals even before the _Albertasaurus_ incident?"

"Yes," nodded Becker, "and I don't like caves either. Basically, I think I have two separate reasons as to why I don't like animals, but, Temple, I don't think that your girlfriend will like either of them."

"Is one of those reasons including your first ARC field experience?" Connor pressed on, "and as for my relationship with Abby, well," he looked at Abby. "Abby, can you please explain our relationship to Becker?"

"No," Abby said flatly. "It's complicated."

"See?"

"And I'm just making things worse?" Becker asked with a crooked grin.

"No," Abby shook her head. "The relationship between Connor and I is confusing, you're making an assumption instead-"

It was then that a police vehicle made an appearance, followed by the rest of Becker's men. They and the police officer emerged simultaneously and stared in a deep suspicion at each other.

Becker, for one, was not making things any better. "Lads," he said brightly, "explain to the officer that we're on Her Majesty's service while I help the field team with the latest dinosaurs, okay? Great!"

With those words Becker turned around and went forth, forcing Connor and Abby to follow. Well, they could have up and stayed, but sounding by the sound of a scuffle growing behind them in pitch and volume... that was not a good idea. "We're right behind you," Connor said reluctantly, as he and Abby followed Becker inside the collision center – and stopped.

A scene of utter ruin and devastation lay before them: heavy benches and desks were smashed into kindling, more lightweight tables smashed into the walls. Pieces of paper (and flesh) were lying everywhere, on occasion - intermixed with sparking and sizzling pieces of computers and photocopiers.

Lying in the middle of it all was a sleeping dinosaur, clearly a meat-eater. At first Connor thought that this was another _Albertasaurus_ (or a juvenile T-Rex for that matter), but it had 3 claws on its forelimbs instead. _Allosaurus_ – but this dinosaur just looked too bulky somehow to be one of the most famous meat-eaters of the late Jurassic. "Abby, Becker?" Connor whispered. "I think that this is an acro."

"An acre?"

"Acro – _Acrocanthosaurus_, if you want to get scientific," Connor whispered. "A middle Cretaceous cousin of _Allosaurus_ rather than the T-Rex. Hunted big sauropod prey-"

Connor did not finish. Slowly, ponderously, the Acro got onto its feet, almost smashing against the ceiling with its height. That meant that it was crouching down, bringing its muzzle square in front of the field team, as it smashed some more into the walls.

The last ceiling light died, but that did not matter: there was enough sunlight coming through the windows and the glass door, and the time anomaly too emitted its own light, twinkling merrily behind the dinosaur.

Admittedly, the field team did not pay it full attention as the dinosaur's muzzle took over most of their field of view instead. It was rather triangular in length, and the teeth in its jaws were rather thin, though also long and serrated.

Slowly, Abby raised her tranquilizer gun to fire, when Becker grabbed her and Connor and pulled her forwards and down – just as the dinosaur's jaws snapped shut with a surprising quickness for such a bulky beast.

"You idiot!" Becker swore as he continued to pull the other two forwards. "This dinosaur was already shot at – and not so long ago that it would forget that-!"

Becker fell silent as at that moment he and the others found themselves on the other side of the time anomaly, in a lush green subtropical forest, very different from the highly urbanized London streets.

"Now this is new," Becker muttered, as he followed Abby and Connor behind a thick redwood tree. "Where are we?"

"In the United States. Only, since it's the middle of the Cretaceous, there aren't any United States – not yet," Connor explained brightly.

"Right," Becker nodded grimly. "What's our big friend is doing?"

"Now that you mention it..." Abby sneaked a peek low to the ground, "it's just standing there, looking insecure."

"Seriously? Why?!" Becker exclaimed as he whirled around to join Abby – and came face to face with a raptor.

Actually, face to face was not correct: Becker (just like his cohorts) was on his hands and knees, while this particular raptor was a great deal taller and bigger than the raptors encountered by Abby and Connor in the past.

"_Utahraptor_!" Connor whispered, sounding suspiciously awe-struck. "Earth's biggest raptor, ever!"

"Connor," Abby began, but did not finish, as two or three other raptors – each one roughly the size of the first – also made an appearance, putting the humans at an almost complete disadvantage. "Becker-"

Before Becker could enquire as to what he did, the raptors struck. With a single mindedness that put the ARC field team to shame, the raptors charged into the clearing, right at the acro, even though it was bigger and bulkier than they were.

The first of the raptors lunged first, jumping straight at the acro's neck, hitting it with its talons.

Utilizing the same surprising speed, the acro whirled around, snapping at the raptors, but it had no chance: there were too many of those raptors for it to handle alone, and they were too large.

"Oh my!" Abby exclaimed. "They are driving it away!"

"Yes – right back into our time," Becker said grimly. "That won't do."

He ran from behind the tree into the clearing, yelling loudly: "Oy! Over here!"

From this action came several others. Firstly, one of the giant raptors stopped and looked in Becker's direction. That gave the acro just enough time to batter it out of the way and flee deeper into the Cretaceous woods, away from the raptors. Snarling and hollering, the raptors followed.

"Guys, we need to get out now," Connor said firmly. "The time anomaly appears to be closing!"

And indeed, the time anomaly's formerly steady light was now flickering on and off. The ARC field team looked at each other fled as quickly as they could through the time anomaly, before it vanished completely... but, fortunately, the ARC field team was already in the present.

"Well, that was different," Becker admitted. "Hey, look, a tooth!"

Abby slapped him.

/

In the end, though, dealing with the dinosaur had been a more pleasant undertaking than dealing with Lester. Apparently, while the ARC field team had been dealing with the dinosaurs in the middle Cretaceous, James Lester had been dealing with an irate police officer named Danny Quinn, and as such he was irate too.

"Now I know that Lewis is dealing with all of the PR around here," he told the field team later in the ARC itself, "but with her unavailable, you just have to be more discreet!"

"Sorry sir, but the dinosaur did a very thorough job in the building," Becker confessed. "I don't know how we can be discreet! At least we managed to pick up any teeth that the dinosaur had left behind, so there's that." He pointed at several long blades of bone. The teeth of the acro were sharp and serrated as if they were steak knives (as Connor could testify personally), but they were also thin, even delicate, and could easily break apart (as Connor could also personally testify).

"Yes, that is a consolation, of sorts," Lester admitted, "but a scanty one. Next time – no messing up, got it?"

"Yes sir," all of the ARC's field team members nodded one. "Can we go now?"

"Just get out!"

The ARC field team left.

/

"Well, that was about as fun as the dinosaurs and time travel," Becker confessed as the trio stood in the parking lot of the Center, unsure what to do next. "So, I guess this is good-bye or something?"

Abby and Connor exchanged looks. "Why don't we go to the local Hortons™ instead?" the blonde suggested. "Might as well finish today's bonding with some coffee and muffins. How does it sound?"

"Sounds good," both Becker and Connor nodded eagerly at the prospect of hot or warm coffee and muffins. "Lead on!"

And the ARC field team left, unaware that they were being followed by several people.

One of them was a police officer.

The other – a journalist.

End


	3. Chapter 3 (part 1)

**Chapter 3 (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

The olive oil was bubbling.

The cook was looming over it as Persephone loomed over Lethe. Choosing the right moment, she dropped the onion rings and the garlic. If earlier the pot hissed like a snake nest, now it hissed like a swarm of mature adders. The hissing could deafen a person. Aromatic smoke circulated around the house, causing the newcomers to inhale the smell deeply. After waiting for the onions to turn as bright as a maiden's blush, the cook reached out for the mullet. Previously, that denizen of the deep had been sliced, salted and treated with vinegar, and now it was being dropped into that fragrant bay piece after piece. Wine rained from above. Then it was the turn of the herbs.

And the pot was closed.

Helen Cutter turned around and said, brightly: "Yes?"

"Um," Abby said, trying not to channel her blonde side. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here," Helen said brightly, "but to answer your question more precisely, I'm waiting for Nick."

"Why?" A vision of Helen, brandishing a Webley or a similar revolver before her husband flashed in Abby's mind, but the younger woman suppressed it, as Helen turned briefly around, opened the pot and added sweet pepper and cucumber to its contents.

"As I may have told Connor some time earlier," Helen turned more serious, "I want a divorce."

There was a pause as Abby turned to Connor. "What is she talking about?"

"We... I... She run into me about a month ago – that's when I brought Long to the ARC, remember?"

"Long?" Becker asked even as he continued to eye Helen's cooking.

"_Compsognathus longipes_, the small dinosaur," Connor explained to him, before turning to Abby. "And before you ask the next question, I told Lester all about it."

Abby stiffened: this was not going how it should have gone. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"I tried to tell you that night, but you didn't listen, and then I forgot. I mean, I told Lester, Lester notified Becker in regards to security – right, Becker?"

"Mrs. Cutter," Becker said instead. "When I was still serving my duty abroad, I had a subordinate, Jeremy Jacobsen. When he was still – alive, he once caught a fish and brought it to a native subaltern of ours to cook it. 'Sir,' said the subaltern, 'this fish is no good without bread and butter.' 'Idiot!' Jacobsen told him. 'If I had bread and butter, would I ask for fish?'"

"You must've led an interesting life in the military," Helen said neutrally, as she used a giant-sized spoon to fill a plate. "But in the future, call me Dr. Ambroise or Ms. Ambroise – Dr. _Cutter_ is my soon-to-be-ex-husband."

"Acknowledged," Becker said gratefully, as he took the soup and a thick slice of bread. "Er," he looked half-apologically and half-pointedly towards Abby and Connor.

"I know," Helen said wryly, as she continued to pour the soup. "I'm serving them next."

"You don't have to," Abby snapped.

"Yes I do," Helen shot back. "When I'm nervous, I need to do something, and that includes cooking. So – _eat_."

"Yes ma'am," Abby gulped as she joined her teammates at the table: they were already working the spoons quite eagerly, and as soon as Abby had a taste of her own, she understood why. "Hey! This is quite good, actually!"

"Thank you. I had a lot of practice," Helen said without a smile. "My mother-in-law-"

Connor made a sound.

"Yes, Connor?"

"I-I met her, once," Connor confessed. "That's how I, the professor and Stephen became friends to begin with. Stephen and I came to the professor's office one night, and met the professor and his mum. The professor had to take Stephen and me to the restaurant that night. We got drunk for the rest of the weekend in order to deal with his mum, and there was no enjoyment in that, either, believe me."

"I believe you," Helen replied, still humorlessly. "I had to deal with her and her husband for almost two decades. Well, laird Cutter himself was a decent man-"

"Wait. Laird Cutter?"

"Yes. Cutter's parents are nobility. Small nobility, in no way connected to the royal family or the like, but still nobility. Got an estate and all. Anyways-"

Becker's radio sprung to life. "Yes?" he spoke reluctantly into it, swallowing his soup beforehand.

"Becker," Lester's voice did not sound any better on the radio as it did in real life. "I don't know what you're doing, but there's a potential time anomaly alert at a hospital, so could you please get to it-"

"On it," Becker said quietly and got up, followed by Abby and Connor.

Helen did not move. "Good luck," she said brightly.

Connor paused, looked at Becker and Abby, and then turned to face her. "You know," he said slowly, "you could come with us. Cutter is going to be there too – both Jenny and Sarah said that it'll be so, believe it!"

There was a pause, as everyone, Helen included, stared at Connor. "Well," Helen finally said, breaking the silence, "I guess I could do that. I need to tell him about the impending divorce anyways. Lead on, and stop saying 'believe it'. It just doesn't sound right, coming from you."

Connor exhaled a breath that he was not aware of holding. "Fine."

/

Danny Quinn was in a sour mood. Few days ago, when he followed a van that had broken through the speed limits, he did not expect to be detained by men in paramilitary uniforms and then talked to by a phone to some Esq. named James Lester about him interfering with Her Majesty's government's business. That was irritating beyond belief, and the fact that the law appeared to be on his opponents' side – doubly so.

In addition, the government men behaved both rudely and suspiciously – so suspiciously, that after their departure Danny remembered that he was Her Majesty's detective-constable and examined the decimated collision center by himself. And what he found there certainly was not what he expected to find – teeth. And not human or animal teeth either.

Altogether, that was enough evidence for Danny Quinn to start his own investigation, and that was what he did. He discovered James Lester's identity quickly enough, and then, eventually, some of his more active underlings (the field agents, mostly), including professor Cutter.

Sadly, while Danny Quinn now had names, he did not have faces, and so he decided to go through the alphabet, starting with professor Cutter: he drove out to his house and began to wait.

His wait did not last too long: soon enough, a woman went out of the building and went towards the nearest bus stop. Flipping through the files, Danny assumed that the woman was either professor Cutter or his wife (or some other sort of a significant other), and apparently he was right: soon enough the woman returned, carrying several grocery bags and began to cook a meal – a big one.

And the reason why (apparently) soon became obvious: the same trio that had tangled with Danny regarding the collision center came to the house – in order to get a hot meal, no doubt.

It has been a while since Danny had a good meal: he was not much of a cook himself, did not have any women in his life, and did not live with his parents for a long time now. None of those facts had improved his mood any and that meant that he grew even more alert than the usual, when the trio – now a quartet – turned to leave. Consequently, he noticed another follower of the foursome, and it was not anybody he knew.

Feeling confrontational, Danny drove to confront.

/

Apparently, James Lester had exaggerated when he told Becker and others that the time anomaly appeared to have manifested at a hospital: rather, it was an eye clinic, i.e. a building of a lesser magnitude than a proper hospital. To put it even more callously and directly, this meant that the ARC field team had less ground to cover (and to find whatever had come through the time anomaly), and spend less time doing so.

And they were not alone. As they arrived at the building's parking lot, so did another car, contained both Cutter and Jenny Lewis (and some more of Becker's people for the back up).

Needless to say, the first encounter did not go well. "What is she doing here?" Cutter all but shouted when he saw his estranged wife.

"Looking for you – I want a divorce."

There was a pause as Nick and Helen just stared at each other. "Why?" Cutter ground out. "You're already dead."

"Mmm... Legally?" Helen asked with a rather knowing look on her face.

"...No," Cutter exhaled and appeared to fold on himself. "A divorce. Lord. Now the humiliation is complete-"

"Sorry about that," Helen actually did look apologetic. "He's Catholic-"

"Don't," Jenny spoke up suddenly. "Please. Don't."

"All right," Helen was somewhat surprised by Jenny's request. "I won't."

Silence fell, a silence so uncomfortable that no one was willing to break it...until there was a loud growl coming from inside the building. Everyone turned around as if they were all a single person and looked in the direction of the sound, but the animal making it did not appear.

Silence fell once again, but this time Becker broke it. "Screw this," he muttered. "Better a man-eating dinosaur than a real-life soap opera." And he went towards the clinic.

Abby and Connor exchanged looks: they still didn't like Becker, especially Abby, but there _had_ been a man-eating dinosaur in their mutual past, and hot coffee, and muffins – you couldn't share all of that with a bloke and let him get eaten by something unknown. Exhaling, and giving Nick and Jenny apologetic looks they followed Becker.

Helen stiffened, took a look at their retreating back, then at her estranged husband and Jenny, then back at them, muttered very softly – "I guess I made my choice" – and followed them, leaving Nick and Jenny behind her, to their own devices...

/

When Helen (who took her time in pulling out a pair of combat knives, just in case) caught up to the other three, the ARC field team (possibly diminished) was standing in the lobby, staring at a long tail protruding from behind the receptionist's desk. The tail was long and twitching. Its owner, however, was not making an appearance.

"Where's Cutter?" Abby asked quietly.

"You're asking the wrong person," Helen shook her head. "Back in the parking lot, would be my guess."

"Oh," Abby replied, still quiet. "Haven't they-"

"So! What kind of mammal do you think this is?" Connor said loudly, clearly trying to shake Abby out of her contemplative mood. "It's not a monkey-"

"I think it's a sabre tooth," Helen said slowly.

"No, I and Abby and the others – except for Becker – had dealt with a sabre-toothed cat. It is actually built more like a brown bear and has a rather short tail."

Helen paused, clearly thinking her next words carefully. "When I usually come to South America, the sabre-toothed cats are actually of the marsupial variety, and they have long tails. True, they are marsupial rather like the opossums, rather than the kangaroos, but they are definitely marsupials: they have those strange lower jaws unlike the real sabre-toothed cats and their young-"

"Stop," Abby said firmly. "Just stop."

"Oh?"

"Abby," Connor began, but the blonde ignored him.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked the older woman. "You're Helen Cutter; you're not supposed to be helpful! You- you got Stephen killed, and we all know it, and you are not supposed to regret it! You cannot be acting like this, like a human being-"

"I've got a doctorate in anthropology, miss Maitland: human beings are my specialty, just as dinosaurs are Nick's and your boyfriend's," Helen nodded, staring Abby straight in the eye. "And as for me acting like a human being? Before, when Stephen was alive, I began to act as if I was a super-human from a comic book of all things with a super-ego to match. The result? Leek played me, Nick played me, albeit for a different reason, and Stephen died. If that was not an ego puncture, I do not know what else is. So no, do not expect me to act as before – I will not have any more blood on my hands. I'm a time traveller, not an assassin!"

"Ladies, please!" Connor winced. "Keep it down. We still have a sabre-toothed cat to take care of-"

"Connor, we've been talking here for 10 minutes straight and it has ignored us altogether," Abby said flatly. "Maybe it has just died on us – we appear to be in _that_ sort of a streak-"

"Let's see," Becker said matter-of-factly. He pulled out some sort of a traveller's flask and uncorked. A rather familiar smell spread throughout the lobby.

"Poured it and saved it for later," Becker muttered, giving Helen a slightly guilty look. "Military habits, I'm afraid."

Helen did not reply, as the owner of the tail withdrew the tail behind the desk (it was a long desk, reaching all the way to the opposite wall at an angle) and revealed its head. It was not a sabre tooth for it lacked sabre-like fangs altogether. Instead, it had oversized incisors both in the lower and upper jaws.

"What _is_ that?" Abby muttered to Connor, as the young man just stared dumbfounded at it.

"No idea," he confessed. "But – I think that it is hurt."

The mammal most certainly was: it was favoring one of its front paws, and it was severely emaciated. Eagerly, ignoring the presence of humans, it began to lick the spilled soup, rather like an oversized house cat lapping milk of all creatures.

"Guys, it's starving," Abby said quietly, her hostility towards Helen Cutter forgotten for the moment. "We can't just kill it – _please_,Becker!"

"Well, it cannot stay here, and starving or not, it's still dangerous!" Becker shot back as the animal finished the soup and looked around for its next meal. It came in a shape of a pemmican bar, thrown by Helen from her backpack and snapped up by the animal very quickly.

"I've got several left," Helen said quickly. "What do you want me to do?"

"Follow me," Abby replied, thinking quicker. "The other van has a containment unit for just such an emergency..."

Helen nodded and threw the next bar.

/

When the ARC field team emerged from the devastated lobby, leading the starving animal after them with pemmican bars, Cutter and Jenny were still there, talking quietly to each other. Surprisingly, this hurt Abby: they were supposed to be a part of the team! And the team was a sort of a surrogate family – their surrogate family, only it was not. First, Stephen died, and now everyone else was acting weird, including Helen, who actually sounded and behaved as an ordinary human.

And also made great soup, but that was beside the point, really. The point was that the ARC team was supposed to be one great constant in Abby's life and it was not, not anymore.

Was it Helen Cutter's fault? True, but Nick and Connor, for two, seemed to be on board with changes, one way or another, and Helen wasn't behind them, not if Abby wanted to stay away from pure paranoia, and she must certainly did.

The door closed as the strange animal (was it a marsupial or not?) followed the last of the pemmican bars into the containment unit, clearly ignoring its surroundings. There. That was over. Now all that was left was-

Becker's radio came to live once more.

"Becker." For once James Lester sounded not sarcastic, as shaken. "Come to the ARC now and bring everyone, who's available and alive."

"We all are," Connor spoke instead, sounding stupefied.

"Of course you are, Shaggy. Now follow my orders!" Lester barked, and everyone, even Helen Cutter, complied.

_TBC_


	4. Chapter 3 (part 2)

**Chapter 3 (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

_Note: this chapter introduces an OC (original character), so be warned!_

Some time earlier

James Lester was having an average day – average for him, at any rate. Cutter – Nick Cutter – was coming back, hopefully back to his regular maverick self and not his new vapid one, Jenny Lewis was coming with him, and Becker appeared to be integrating with the rest of the ARC field team.

So far so good, and then Lorraine passed him a call from Christine Johnson, asking if he could meet her later on today. Since Johnson called him only to gloat or to curse – never to hold a decent conversation. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

Anyways, Lester was about to decline after cooking up some excuse on the fly (well, actually, asking Lorraine to do that instead – she was so much better), when he realized that once Nick Cutter returned to the ARC he would not be in a good mood, and that jousting with Johnson would be a good warm-up for the confrontation with Cutter. Therefore, he agreed to come.

As a matter of fact, that was a fate-changing decision. Only back then James Lester did not know it...

/

Christine met him as she always did (when she was in a good mood): smiling in a superior way. It was both smug and annoying yet now it appeared more tolerable than in the past. Lester was not sure why that was, but he did not complain with the results. "Christine," he said evenly, trying to sound the way he usually did, which was not that hard, actually. "How are you doing since you returned from Jamaica?"

"Fine, James, just fine," Christine said, her smile fraying around the edges just a little bit. "Heard that you had some team members committed after that Leek incident?"

Lester did his best not to scowl. There were no indications – yet – that Leek _was_ another one of Christine's protégés, though he did fit their usual psychological profile, up to him going rogue (or "independent", as Christine preferred to put it into her excuse on paper or in person). "Yes, I suppose that that's one way of putting it," he agreed, doing his best not to snap at his interlocutrix and lose face, "but that's not the reason why you called me, is it?"

"No," Christine admitted, now almost frowning since James was not losing his self-control. "I actually want to talk to you about your work."

"...My work? Why? You did not find a time anomaly, did you? Johnson, those things are very dangerous, and not just because they tend to release all sort of prehistoric monsters into our world-"

"James, relax. Unlike your group of mavericks my people are perfectly under my control and so is my control over this entire situation-" Christine Johnson began but didn't finish, as yet another person approached the arguing civil servants.

The person in question was tall, thin, almost angular, wore clothes similar to Christine's, and a perpetual scowl alongside a pair of dark glasses on her face. Both Lester and Johnson knew that person almost intimately, for that was their boss.

"Madame Minister," Lester tried to seize the initiative before his partner could. "What are you doing here-?"

"It's a private visit, I suppose," the skinny woman was in an even sourer mood than her usual. "Johnson. We need to talk."

Christine paled. For all of her differences with James Lester, both of them agreed that their superior at work should be kept as far away as possible unless one wanted to end up sent to Kingston or to Moscow as part of their demotion. "Yes, ma'am?" she asked cautiously. "What do you want to talk about?"

The minister looked at the other woman, and James Lester could swear that he see some sort of a bluish light glowing faintly behind those dark glasses of hers. Actually, such rumours about their superior's hidden eyes circulated freely through the government, and Lester even saw something like that personally, but the rumours were usually dismissed as a trick of the light and the minister's formidable reputation – but right now Lester was not so sure.

"The so-called artefact," the minister said flatly. "It's a long, hexagonal cylinder roughly six to ten feet long that your minions have acquired several centuries from now, in an abandoned building. Most of them were lost fighting the creatures' native to that time, correct?"

The other woman turned pale and gaping and Lester was beginning to have a very wrong feeling in his stomach too: something was really wrong here.

"Yes, ma'am," Christine has clearly sensed it as well. "Your information is... very precise. How did you acquire it?"

"From my personal sources and resources, which include your so-called artefact," the minister said, light glinting off her teeth.

It was well known in Her Majesty's government that Ms. Veux (that was the minister's last name) had mostly artificial teeth that were done a long time ago (though nobody knew just how long) in a really old-fashioned metallic style. She was often – well, occasionally – offered to have them redone, but she always refused, flatly, and now Lester could see why. The intimidation effect was amazing.

"Now, Ms. Johnson, please hand my property over to me," the minister was continuing in her trademark manner, "and no one will get hurt." Somehow Lester doubted that their senior was talking about herself.

"Ma'am... no," Christine Johnson looked ten shades of horrified, but she was not folding without a token fight at least. "If this was official, then yes. But this is private, you're obscuring the progress of improvement of Our Majesty's government-"

"Ms. Johnson, when was the first time you have actually improved anything, government-related or otherwise?" the minister gave the other woman a look that came through even despite the dark glasses. "Let's hear it. For the way I know it, your last attempt was Oliver Leek...though that was not proven yet. The only progress you have made is to learn how to cover your tracks better – that is not what I seek, nor the rest of the government, nor anyone else. Yes?"

James Lester has not liked Christine Johnson for a long while, but to hear the minister speak to the younger woman like that was chilling. It was probably a long time in coming, but it was still chilling.

"Ma'am," Christine Johnson sounded small and shaken for the first time in a long while, "please give me one last chance. I am competent, and I can prove it."

"Lester." The minister turned to James instead. "You and Johnson were rivals for a long time and know each other better than anyone else. Should I listen to her?"

"I didn't ask for this," Lester said the first thing that came into his mind. Neither woman appeared to be too impressed by this, so he tried something else. "Yes, you should," he finally said.

"Very well," the minister turned back to the younger woman. "One last chance, Johnson. Make something useful from the artefact. Lester – or his people - will supervise."

"Please, anyone but him!" Christine's cheeks were alternating between white and red. "Anyone but Lester!"

"Captain," the minister was seemingly ignoring Christine and James. "Can I have your gun, please?"

"Yes ma'am," captain Wilder said tersely: he too sensed some sort of a danger but could not see it directly. "Here you go."

"Thank you," the minister said brightly before turning back to Christine – and putting the gun into her mouth in one smooth motion.

And then she began to chew.

And then she spat the handgun out, chewed beyond recognition. "You fail, Johnson," she said, smiling in a completely inhuman way, "you'll look like this. Only more so. James, captain – good day."

And the minister left, ignoring Christine Johnson as the younger woman promptly fainted and would have fallen onto the floor if Lester and captain Wilder did not catch her.

"Captain," Lester said promptly, "try to restrain Ms. Johnson until I contact my sources and figure out just what our minister is."

"Yes sir," Captain Wilder nodded.

/

Now

James Lester has never been fond of Helen Cutter: as far as he was concerned, the woman was a smarter, much more competent and lethal version of Christine, though with an equally large ego, if Cutter's last Leek-related report was anything to go by. Of course, Cutter himself was not exactly a prize, but-

But that was beside the point. For all of her flaws, that irritating woman often proved to be a true fount of information, and Lester could really use some information right now. And there and then – his prayers were being answered for a change – she was, coming out of a car, alongside Becker and others.

Wait. Alongside Becker and others? That somehow appeared to be inappropriate, but Lester did not dwell on it, as several of the ARC workers – and Becker's men – came to the field team's containment unit and carefully withdrew from it some sort of a prehistoric animal, vaguely cat-like but with really strange teeth.

"Now that's more like the ARC I remember," Lester sad neutrally. "Cutter, Connor, what is this thing?"

"I've been checking the net for similar animals, and I think that it's a _Thylacoleo carnifex_ – a marsupial lion," Connor explained, while Cutter just silently let him.

Lester frowned: apparently Nick Cutter was not yet his old self, but his mouth moved before his mind did. "If it's a lion, then where's its mane?" he asked.

"Um, marsupial lions didn't have manes, apparently," Connor said, sounding rather like his regular self. "They're not really lions or cats, their branch of the family was closer to the thylacines, and maybe wombats..."

"Right, you hold onto that, and I'll get to you later," Lester said in a more matter-of-fact tone. "Dr. Cutter. What are you doing here?"

"He still works here, apparently," Helen said brightly, "and I'm here to help Ms. Lewis start on my divorce papers from him. Does that clear things up?"

Again, Lester's mouth moved faster than his brain did. "What? The two of you are still married? She's been gone for years, man, and you didn't do the papers?"

"I hoped," Nick said plainly. "You won't understand-"

"Try me!"

Nick remained silent.

"Fine," Lester exhaled and turned to the other Cutter. "I don't suppose that you know how my superior was able to a chew handgun and spit it out? Literally."

"Gigi did what?" Helen's eyes budged.

"Don't call her that!" Lester snapped, before catching himself. "Wait. You know her?" He paused. "Of course you do. I mean, if you know her personally-"

"Yes, I do, and it's a non-linear story," Helen admitted crossly. "You want to sit down for this one."

"Why don't I help Connor settle the marsupial lion in?" Becker said suddenly. "I really don't want to hear a political tale-"

"It's not a political, it's chronological," Helen crossly replied. "In the 12th century lived a good Norman knight sir de Veux: loyal vassal of King Henry II, not so loyal – of his wife. Ergo, when the good king Henry II died, his grieving widow ordered the destruction of sir de Veux and his family. The entire castle was put to the torch, the entire family slaughtered, save for one daughter, who managed to run into a time anomaly that took her to a very distant future that will take place several centuries from now."

Helen exhaled. "There, when I did run into Gigi for the first time, she was already a fully-developed 'nanotechnological cyborg', whatever that is. Because she is possessive, territorial, and on a typical makes me look lucid and humane, we fought, and she did not kill me, though she tried. Eventually, when she learned that I went back into the past, created a new identity, and helped create the ARC by becoming a private investor, she followed me and became a member of Her Majesty's government. Eventually, apparently she became impressed by you enough to warn you rather than go for the throat-"

"Actually, that was Johnson," Lester said slowly. "I always knew that she was stupid, but this-"

"Wait!" Connor said suddenly. "Mr. Lester, do you really believe her?"

"Sadly, yes," Lester nodded. "She really is a private investor in the Center and the two of us have met at meetings when she pretends to be someone else, basically."

"It's great fun to have Lester actually talking politely with me," Helen nodded. "That said, I'm not an active investor and let him have his way practically always."

Silence fell as Lester clearly did not deny it. "So," Connor said, trying to fill the silence, even though he really did not. "Helen is a partial owner of the ARC; Lester's boss is a time-travelling cyborg who is really efficient civil servant as well. What else we don't know?"

It was then that Becker's radio came to life. "Yes?" Becker spoke into it, flatly. "Horowitz, is it you?"

"Yes, sir," came the reply. "We called to tell you that that time anomaly – at the eye clinic has disappeared."

"Has anything or anyone else come out?" Becker demanded.

"No, sir. We, actually, we actually went to check what was on the other side-"

"That was against the orders!"

"Yes sir, sorry sir. But can I just add that on the other side of the time anomaly was a cave – the bottom of a cave. Very narrow, rather dark and crowded, but also empty. There was nothing."

"Good," Becker said flatly. "Keep your watch for another hour or so to ensure that the time anomaly doesn't re-open, and Ms. Lewis will do the PR work."

"Gee, thanks, but I have to work on the divorce papers," Jenny muttered.

"I can do that instead of you," Abby said quietly. "I saw a lot of divorce papers from my parents' divorce."

"Splendid!" James Lester said with that type of mock-cheer that made many other people want to hit him. "I do love it when a plan comes together! It leaves me with nothing to worry about!"

"Great," Helen said flatly. "This makes me wonder what _will_ go wrong..."

/

"So, let me get this straight," detective-constable Quinn asked his interlocutor. "You're a journalist and you've been on the trail of the so-called Anomaly Research Center for a while now, ever since there were rumours of a mammoth – or a giant elephant – on a highway. Correct?"

"Yes," Mick Harper eagerly nodded: at last he was understood and not ridiculed. "They're concealing the truth-"

"They most probably are, but they may also have a good reason," Danny interrupted the other man. "Take a look at those." Without much ado he pulled out a pair of dinosaur teeth, one of which was broken in two, though. "I run into the Center agents few days ago, and got told off. Later, when they were gone, I found those. I'm not the most well-read person around, but if those aren't dinosaur teeth, I'll resign."

"Can I touch them?" Mick stared at the teeth with a genuine awe and curiosity.

"I'd rather you didn't," Danny confessed. "One, they're really sharp and can cut you really fast. Two, they are really fragile and you can break them really fast. Anyways, I don't like the Center people very much, but they do apparently stand between us and the dinosaurs with steak knife-like teeth."

"That's a – good point, actually," Mick nodded thoughtfully. "That said, can you came along with me to my boss and show her the teeth? I still need to make my case to her, and those could really help."

Danny thought about it. He really didn't have anything for or against Mick's suggestion, so why not?

"Very well," he said finally. "But no sudden interviews, got it?"

"It's a deal," Mick agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

And the two men shook hands.

End


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Helen was tired. That could sound surprising, since she often went for days on end with just a short stop to rest and to eat, but that was a different situation altogether, caused by necessity as a rule. When confronted with a choice of making an endurance-testing trek across time and space, or staying in a single place for a long time, months or even years – a Triassic riverbed, a Jurassic scrubland or island, etc. – Helen often preferred to make the trek rather than stay behind.

When, however, Helen got the option to stay in a more civilized time and place – the ancient Roman Empire or even her native 20th-21st century London – she often succumbed to tiredness and apathy, doing little that distinguished her from the 'little people', and lately she was doubting that she really was all that different at all, whether or not those 'little people' were that little or she that great.

It was all very tiring and depressing, and when Abby Maitland slid next to her with a clearly non-hostile intent, Helen was actually surprised by the younger woman's actions, as in 'caught unaware'.

"Miss Maitland," she said neutrally, "good morning."

"It's not that good," Abby replied quietly. "It's overcast-"

"It's England. If you want sunny skies, move to south France," Helen replied in her turn. "What brings you here to my little corner of the universe?"

"You really are divorcing Nick?" Abby continued, quietly, as she looked over Helen's paperwork that the older woman was working with. "I want to help."

"Why?" was the flat-on question.

"I... My parents went through a divorce. Neither mom nor dad really wanted us – that's me and my brother Jack – and we had a lot of experience with divorce papers and lawyers, with adoption houses-"

"And the fact that you're close to Nick isn't helping," Helen nodded sagely.

"And Connor seems to have forgiven you too," Abby shot back.

"And you?"

There was a pause. "I – don't trust you," Abby said quietly, "unlike Connor. He tends to trust everyone, even Caroline Steele."

"I remember her," Helen nodded thoughtfully. "Leek had her on a short leash, though I didn't pay her much attention back then."

"...Right," Abby twitched. "Moving on... Your agreement does seem fair, though the house-"

"It's a nice house, and Nick doesn't appear to use it, much," Helen said flatly. "I plan to lease it to some renters when I get the custody of it."

"...You've given it a lot of thought, haven't you?" Abby finally spoke.

"Yes," Helen nodded. "Somebody has to, and this is the sort of thing that Nick never does, if he can help it – it goes against his Catholic upbringing."

"..."

"What?"

It was then that Abby's cell phone began to ring.

"Yes?"

It was a time anomaly.

/

Connor Temple, Becker discovered, might be an easy-going guy, but he could also very easily carry a grudge. EMI, National Geographic, similar internet channels – Connor hated them all with a vengeance.

"And the boat that didn't take their immigrant ancestors with them," Connor was muttering as he and Becker went to get into the van. "Those club-footed troglodytes, who think that they're the next lord Byron-"

"Must be a collective conscience, then," James Lester said brightly, as he made an appearance. (He has been visiting the mammoth and heard the younger men walking to the garage).

"Pardon?" Connor asked.

"You know, several troglodytes, one lord Byron-"

"Just who do you think you are? Alexander the Great or Alexander Borgia the pope?" Connor said flatly. "Mr. Lester, we need to pick up Abby, and you're not helping."

"My apologies," Lester shook his head. "Carry on, then." He turned around and vanished in the ARC's depths.

The younger men exchanged looks. "That was weird," Connor admitted.

"Yes, and look at the time," Becker agreed.

"What about it?"

"Connor, I don't know about the Cretaceous or the Pleistocene or whenever, but here, in the 21st century it is autumn, meaning that it will be dark soon. You want to hunt giant dinosaurs at night?"

"...Point," Connor confessed. "Let's call Abby."

/

"Well, I got to go," Abby confessed. The conversation was going off in a strange direction, but Abby was reluctant to leave: it was growing dark, and it looked like it was going to rain as well. "Good luck on your divorce."

"Right," Helen nodded thoughtfully, and reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a bull's-eye lamp. "Here. You tried to be nice to me, so I'm going to repay the favor."

"Um, we've got electric flashlights-" Abby protested weakly.

"My lamp also runs on electricity," Helen said flatly. "Just how out-of-touch do you think I am?"

"Er-"

"Anyways, this got more power than a flashlight, and the beam's more focused. Considering that lately the nights are really dark, this can come in handy," Helen shrugged.

It was then that the ARC field team's van arrived, Becker driving as recklessly as usual, Connor in a foul mood over something or other as well. Abby was clearly in no position to argue and she knew it. "Fine," she told the older woman. "But as soon as this trip is over, I'm returning the lamp."

"Okay," Helen replied simply, and the ARC field team drove away. Helen watched them leave with an odd look on her face...

/

"Where's Cutter, guys?" Abby asked straightaway as she realized that it was just her and the two guys once again. "And Jenny?"

"Jenny is working on the divorce papers – well, consulting with her lawyer," Becker replied, keeping his eyes on the road (fortunately), "and Cutter's with Page, checking her scientific advances in the research. Is it just me, or is somebody following us?"

There was a pause as the two civilians caught up to Becker's logic. "It's not the police again?" Abby suggested.

"No, there are no sirens."

"Of course not, we're on land!" Connor said brightly. As both Abby and Becker stared at him confused, he added. "Oh, come on! Does no one care for the _Odyssey_ anymore?"

"Connor, there's a time and place for the _Odyssey_, and right now it isn't either," Abby shook her head. "Anyways-"

"Here we are," Becker interrupted the blonde as they drove onto another plaza. "The time anomaly is supposed to be-"

"Here," Connor finished as he pointed out at the store that had its lights still on – including the chromatic white light of a time anomaly.

/

The insides of the store were in disarray, but not enough to hide the fact that it was not a store, but rather an office of some sort. "Hello? Is anyone here?" Connor called out, hoping that the reply would not come from a Neanderthal or a future predator.

"Yes, me," a woman looked out from one of the side rooms. "I'm Julia Chernoviky."

"Hello, Ms. Chernoviky," Abby said with what (she hoped) was a genuine smile. "We're with the ARC regarding this." She pointed to the time anomaly.

"Good!" Ms. Chernoviky nodded primly. "I was staying late finishing the transcription, when this thing appeared and that animal came through it."

"What animal?" Connor said slowly.

"That!" his interlocutrix pointed to beneath a table. The field team looked, and saw something like love child of an owl and a chicken stare back at them.

There was a pause. "What is it?" Abby asked their current dinosaur expert.

"I think that it's a _Shuvuuia_ or a related species. Basically, a dinosaur version of the anteater, and not even the giant anteater; rather, the small, silky anteater; only it doesn't live on the trees, but on the ground-"

"Connor, stop," Abby said firmly. "We can talk about anteaters some other time."

"Why? Becker, can you handle this dinosaur on your own?"

"Now look," Becker began and stopped, as new characters emerged on the scene. "Hello, sir."

"Hello, Becker," captain Wilder nodded evenly, but got shown aside by Christine Johnson, who looked angry and scary enough to frighten even the small dinosaur.

"Where're your superiors?" she snapped at the field team.

"Sorry, it's just us and the dinosaur, see?" Connor grabbed the small reptile from Becker and thrust it towards the older woman. "It's just a small insectivore, no problem..."

Abruptly, the dinosaur jerked and kicked out, showing sickle-like talons on its hind legs. At the same time it snapped at Connor with small, but sharp teeth, causing him to release it.

Instinctively, Connor dropped it, and that might have saved his life, as the dinosaur scurried into the back of the office, where it was joined by several more members of its kind, both young and fully-grown.

If the original dinosaur was about the size of half-grown chicken, the adults were more of a size of a modest turkey, but all were armed with sickle-shaped claws and sharp teeth that made them quite different from turkeys.

As they snarled, a thunderstorm broke outside, and the lights in the office flickered and died, plunging it into semi-darkness.

"Oh! I know now what they are!" Connor said brightly. "_Velociraptor mongolicus_!"

/

For several moments there was silence as people and raptors just stared at each other, and then something just snapped in Abby. "Shut up, Connor!" she yelled, as she swung her lamp (she took it along just for the Hell of it). "Now isn't the time-!"

Accidentally – there was a wire loose it was discovered later – the lamp switched on and a beam of reddish light that contrasted sharply with the chromatic white light of a time anomaly switched on. That light hit the foremost raptor right into the snout, startling it enough to retreat into the time anomaly. And that broke the tension altogether, as the rest of the raptors decided that that was their cue to leave as well. En masse, the entire pack of velociraptors turned around and retreated, in an orderly fashion, through the time anomaly that fortunately closed just as the last raptor made its disappearance.

"Well, that was fast! And lucky!" Connor said brightly, as he and the rest of the ARC field team turned to face Christine Johnson and co. "Ms. Johnson, there was no need for you to come here, eh?"

Connor fell silent, as Christine Johnson grimaced in a very nasty way. "Lucky?" she snapped out. "Lucky? Is that what it is all about? Luck? Of course. James always had all the luck, even though he claimed otherwise. Well, you know what?" She went outside, ignoring the ever-increasing rain. "I defy you, luck!"

Crack! A big hailstorm came down from the sky, knocking the female civil servant prone. And then it began to hail in earnest.

Wilder turned to the ARC field team. "I don't suppose you let us use your Center's medical wing?" he asked plainly.

"I don't think that we can reach it," Becker replied to his former superior officer. "Not even I can drive in this hail."

The others looked further outside (Christine Johnson had been standing under an overhanging roof, and the hail hit her at an edge, softening the blow to a glancing one), and agreed.

/

Inside the office lights still did not come on yet, and even though the door was closed, it was still rather cold. The fact that the time anomaly did not re-open was a consolation, but not a very big one.

"So, anyone here is claustrophobic?" Connor said brightly.

"I suppose I am," Becker suddenly replied. "My last mission ended up rather badly in a cave, so I am not too fond of enclosed spaces."

"Really? What has happened?" Abby even forgot to snipe at Connor: whenever his past was enquired Becker would become even more tightly lipped than the usual.

"I don't remember much," Becker confessed. "I do know that I got treated for rabies after I got rescued, but since this was a cave, and there are usually bats-"

"You forgot to add that that rabies strain was of a different type than the one usually encountered in the Middle East," Christine Johnson added flatly as apparently she recovered from the hail. "The military wanted to do an investigation, but by then Becker here has retired from active service and signed on to be Lester's chief of security," she added, bitterly.

"I put down paperwork and everything," Becker firmly replied. "My conscience is clean."

"Is it?" Christine stared at her interlocutor, who did not blink.

"You know," Connor said quickly, in order to prevent a confrontation, "there are so-called future predators from the future that appear to have evolved from bats. They are flightless-"

"I remember leathery wings," Becker cut him off, "so it wasn't whatever you're talking about." He paused and added. "And yes, I talked with James Lester about this, so I know what you're talking about."

"Excuse me," the office worker looked out of her cubicle, "but since the dinosaurs appear to have vanished, couldn't you go? Because if you're paid by the hour-"

"Ma'am, we're paid by the government, not a private firm," Abby said, trying to channel Jenny.

Surprisingly, it appeared to have worked.

"Oh, okay then. But still, the storm appears to be abating, so maybe you can leave-"

It was then that the door opened and a man strode in. "Surprise!" he said before he noticed that his significant other (supposedly) was not alone. "What is going on here?"

"I know you! You play that wizard in the ads!" Connor spoke without thinking.

"Yes, I am-"

"We're just leaving," Becker quickly interrupted, as Wilder began to usher the others out and Abby gagged Connor. "There was something of an emergency here. Good luck with your date."

The ARC team left.

/

Outside the weather has cleared up – somewhat: the hail became reduced to a light drizzle and there were now gaps between the clouds, some of them with stars.

"That was anti-climatic," Connor confessed to Abby as apparently Johnson's team decided to cut their losses and left already.

"Shut up," the young woman snapped, but her heart was not in it. Rather, she looked askance one last time at the closed office, where despite the drawn curtains one could vaguely see two people making out, and sighed.

Working at the ARC may have been exciting, but on a romantic level – it sucked.

End


	6. Chapter 5 (part 1)

**Chapter 5 (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters_

Mick Harper was a man on a mission – almost. Until recently, his mission was to expose the government cover-up of prehistoric animals appearing in modern times and it appeared that when had encountered one Danny Quinn, a police detective-constable with a grudge of his own, the universe had decided to give him a lucky break after all.

Danny Quinn, as it was said already, had a grudge, but also evidence – genuine dinosaur teeth. Meat-eating dinosaur teeth, to be precise. With those teeth backing up their claim, Mick was certain that Katherine would listen to him now – and she did.

"_Mick, you and your – friend," Katherine Kavanaugh, Mick's boss and semi-friend gave only a casual look at the two men. "The two of you better have some substance to your claim or come with something new and different, like-"_

"_Here." The police officer was not a fast talker, but when it came to action, he was certainly fast. "We got proof." He put the two dinosaur teeth onto Katherine's table. "They're genuine, too."_

"_Hmm." Carefully and thoughtfully Katherine looked over the two teeth and examined them closely. "Even if they are fakes, and I am not saying this officially, they're clearly something else. All right. Harper, this is your friend, so you will do the interview. I can give you a spot next month. See if you can add some photos for further elaboration. Dismissed."_

_And the two men left._

Now Mick was in a peculiar position. On one hand, he had something in his hands, even if it was an interview that he did not particularly strive for. On the other, he still had no photos to elaborate his point, and Danny Quinn flatly told him before they went to see Katherine that he had no intention of being interviewed if he could help. Add this to the friendly relationship between Mick and Katherine, and it began to look as if Mick would be returning to his superior next month with the confession that his investigation, etc., just fell apart. Those things happened often enough, and not to Mick alone, so Mick would not be fired, but it was still unpleasant and humiliating.

"If only I had an idea of the common link between them," Mick looked of the time anomaly map on his wall. "If only..."

/

The building of the ARC loomed before Helen like some futuristic mastodon. Considering, that one of the organization's mascots was a Columbian mammoth, this comparison appeared rather appropriate.

"Hello, Abby" Helen turned to the younger woman as the latter exited the building. "You phoned and asked if I couldn't come and get my lamp? I agreed, and here I am. Ergo, what appears to be the problem?"

"No problem," Abby shook her head, "it's just that Ni- professor Cut-, um, well, he and Connor had a breakthrough. You know that the time anomalies are based on radio waves?"

"Go on."

"Yes, well, the two of them have figured out how to detect time anomalies-"

"I thought that your organization already did all that – you people were certainly fast acting when it came to time anomalies."

"No, just a lot of really useful contacts and some PR work by Jenny," Abby shook her head, her mood improving. "This will allow us to detect the time anomalies far quicker. Want to come and take a look? It won't be long," she added, seeing that the older woman appeared undecided.

"Very well," Helen nodded. "I can do that."

Together, the two women went inside the Center.

/

"People, are you ready to report?" Christine Johnson barked at her subordinates. The civil servant was not in a good mood. Even if you took all of the supernatural aside, the minister's last visit had put a time limit on her organization's experimental period, and a far steeper one than Christine Johnson would have enjoyed. "Do we have a breakthrough on the artefact?"

"Yes, ma'am," one of the underlings said. "I think – _we_ think that it is related to the time anomalies that James Lester's people are dealing with."

"Prove it!" Christine barked.

"Yes ma'am," the underling bravely quivered, as his co-workers wheeled-in a rather steampunk-looking contraption. "Allow us to demonstrate. With a press of a button-"

The underling pressed the button and the world changed.

/

_Meanwhile..._

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Connor said brightly. "Let me demonstrate the Cutter & Temple time anomaly detector-"

"Is he going on like this for a long time?" James Lester asked loudly, probably on purpose. "I got paperwork to fill."

"Sir!" Lorraine glared at Lester, before turning. "Mr. Temple, please go on."

"There's not much to go on about," Nick, apparently, was not any happier about Connor's theatrics than Lester was. "Connor, just push the button."

"Fine," Connor said brightly. "If there are any time anomalies in the audience, prepare to be detected!"

He pressed the button and the world changed. Instead of Lester's office, the ARC field team and co. were standing on seashore. Warm, subtropical sun was beating down on them, there were no clouds in the sky, and large flying reptiles swooped down to the water's surface, scooping fish and squid with their beaks.

"Looks like middle to late Cretaceous, young Temple," Helen said smoothly, seeing that Lester was too choked with emotions to reply, and Lorraine, whose chair vanished right underneath her, was lying on the warm sand and trying to regain her balance. Becker and Nick hurriedly went over to her to assist. "How exactly does your invention work?"

"It works just fine," Connor said defensively, "just look at its' display: there's a time anomaly to the east of our position-"

"Directly to the east?"

"Yes!" Connor said flatly. "All we have to do is go east and- Helen, are you listening to me?"

"No," Helen confessed, as she looked away from the binoculars that she pulled out of her backpack. "Nick, you're the dinosaur expert, care to share if the animals on the horizon are tyrannosaurs?"

"...Yes," Nick agreed as he took his own look through the binoculars. "They're too slim to be _Tyrannosaurus_ proper, so we're not in the late Cretaceous per se. I would say that this is _Albertosaurus_, _Gorgosaurus_ or _Daspletosaurus_ to name the most likely."

"Are they fast?" Lester turned away from Connor and become more professional (despite sand and sea foam on his suit).

"Think of them as sport cars as compared to T-Rex's SUV," Connor said brightly. "They're smaller but faster and just as deadly."

There was a pause as Lorraine tried to faint. Sarah Page did not, but she grasped Helen by the arm very, very firmly. "I wanted some excitement in my life ever since that land-based prehistoric crocodile appeared in the museum, but this is overkill."

"More like overcompensation for all of those weeks and months of neglect you've mentioned to me at our dinner," Helen shrugged. "Nick, we're in the Cretaceous, right?"

"Yes?" her husband replied, guardedly.

"_Anyways_," Lester interjected firmly, "before the two of you start to discuss vices and virtues of the various dinosaurs from the different time epochs, can we get a move on to that time anomaly before it closes? I am an office worker, damn it! It was bad enough when Leek's pet predator invaded the ARC, and this is worse!"

"So, we just go east, how hard can it be?" Abby asked rhetorically.

Everyone looked eastwards. There, the sea was replaced by a river, and the sandy shoreline – by more dense woodland.

"You and Shaggy make a very nice couple, you know?" Lester said bitterly. "When you get married, humanity's naiveté will sky rocket. Anyone got a machete to carve the path?"

There was no machete, but Helen had an entrenching tool left over in her backpack for just such an emergency.

/

"What do you mean – we're stuck?" Christine Johnson's voice fell dangerously low. "You're saying that you don't know how your contraption works? And by "how" I mean not the production of the result, but the actual inner workings-"

"And we know that they work, and how they work, and that they also need to be re-charged – we just are not sure how long does that take," that same underling replied. "This is the first field test, you know?"

"Yes, I do know," Christine muttered as she took off her high heels – _not_ because she wanted to run barefoot on the soft sand, really, as she did on Jamaica, but because that same sand was useless to walk in those same heels. "Anything else you want to say to me?"

"Dinosaurs," captain Wilder spoke evenly. "See?"

Everyone, not just Christine, looked in that direction. Sure enough, a herd of dinosaurs emerged from the woodland that grew further away from the lake. Their heads had horn-like outgrowths that curved backwards and bill-like mouths. They also had hooves rather than claws, and preferred to walk on all fours. That, and the fact that they ignored the humans in favour of leaves and lake water, confirmed the dinosaurs' safety – or rather, the human safety.

"Ma'am," captain Wilder stated the obvious. "I don't think that they're dangerous."

At that moment, one of the younger (or at least smaller) dinosaurs recklessly abandoned the safety of the herd and instead trotted over to them, beginning to lounge nearby instead. It obviously ignored the humans, just eying them definitely, like some rebel without a cause.

"Very good, captain," Christine exhaled. "Anything else? Like, where are we, for instance? Is that a sea, a river-"

"A river or a lake, ma'am," Wilder visibly relaxed as well. "We tested and tasted the water. It's fresh."

"Fine," For some reason Christine Johnson felt more relaxed than she ever did in England. The sun was warm, the sand was soft, and the lake was blue. "Is there anything dangerous there?"

"No-" Wilder didn't finish. Several of the dinosaurs went to the lake to drink, and as they drank, a crocodile that was several times longer than they were, burst from the water and grabbed one by the head. The rest of the dinosaurs scattered, but the victim did not escape. The giant crocodile dragged it, still screaming, into deeper water and submerged.

"...Of course," Christine exhaled. "The universe always has a giant crocodile in store for me. Everyone, try to go to the lake as little possible, or better yet, find a stream. What?" she added, as someone pushed her from behind.

It was the smallish dinosaur. As the rest of the herd scattered everywhere, it decided to stay with the humans instead and was now pushing Christine as if to figure out who was in charge.

"I think it likes you," Wilder could not keep the humour out of his voice for the first time.

Instead of replying, Christine just gave him a look. Wilder got the hint and fell silent.

In the sky, the sun continued to sink downwards.

/

The Cretaceous forest was rather humid and somewhat dark, but there were no dinosaurs, apparently. Becker, who covered the rear, claimed that they were being watched, but so far no giant reptilian predator appeared from behind the trees and shrubs to rip them all into bloody rags, so it was probably just nerves.

Speaking of trees of shrubs, their roots were protruding here, there, and everywhere, and while most of the chronologically displaced people were more or less adept at dealing with them, Lorraine was positively miserable. Sarah Page was not so much.

"I'm confused," she muttered to Helen. "I feel like I should be miserable, but I'm not. I feel like I should be happy, but I am not. Any ideas how I feel?"

"Undecided," Helen suggested, quietly.

Sarah snorted.

"Why is Dr. Page talking to her so much?" Lester meanwhile muttered to Abby, who opted to move to the front of the line at this moment.

"Because the rest of us had largely ignored her lately," Abby confessed. "Well, except for Ms. Wickers, but Ms. Wickers is, a) special like that, and b) is currently in no mood to carry a conversation." She looked askance at Lorraine. "Personally, I think that she's just scared right now."

"And you're not?"

"We've been recently in the Cretaceous already," Abby shrugged, "when we were dealing with the collision center time anomaly..."

"Yes, yes, I read your reports. So did Cutter, and he was regretful that he had missed it. Now he's got his chance," Lester muttered, and then the woodland ended. Instead the ARC personnel found themselves at a shore of a lake or a bay, sandy rather than overgrown with shrubbery (grass had not evolved yet). Another group of people (and one moderate-sized dinosaur) were there breaking camp already.

"That's a good idea," Nick told Lester sotto voce. "Day and night came sooner and went quicker in the Cretaceous than in our time. It'll be night soon, and we should break camp too – haven't you noticed that it was steadily growing darker?"

"I just thought that it was the dense tree tops," Lester muttered back, before turning to the other group. "So, Johnson, your invention is behind this?"

/

Today, Christine Johnson had to admit, was a very strange day. On one hand, she was stuck millions of years in the past, in the time of the dinosaurs. On the other – she was not alone. On the third, there were giant crocodiles, but the dinosaurs (or at least one specific dinosaur) proved to be rather nice.

"So, Johnson, your invention is behind this?" James Lester's annoying voice came from behind her.

"Yes," Christine instinctively snapped as she got up and turned around. Sure enough, Lester and several of his people (though Christine's people were more numerous) were there in person. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," a strange, female, shaky voice came from behind James Lester. "Mr. Lester has briefed us that you were working with a futuristic time anomaly-related technology, and we were working with, well, less futuristic time anomaly-related technology, so they must've made contact and overlapped. Or something. I don't know, it's all radio waves to me."

"Dr. Page, do you mind?" Lester muttered crossly. "Anyways, Johnson, will you be able to fix this?"

"It is not broken to begin with!" Christine shot back. "It just needs to recharge!"

"How long?"

Christine took a mouthful of air to reply and then checked herself. She wasn't sure why, but after the minister came down on her roughly two weeks ago arguing with James Lester just wasn't the same any more, especially since the chances of Christine herself being fired or worse were quite high.

"Ugh, never mind," she just shook her head. "Aside from the giant crocodiles today was a rather nice day, and I won't even let you spoil it."

"Giant crocodiles, professor?" Lester turned to Nick.

"_Deinosuchus, Deinosuchus rugosus_ most likely," Nick thoughtfully replied. "They were more closely related to the modern alligators and caymen rather than the true crocodiles, but this isn't exactly my field of expertise. I do remember that the ancestors of the modern crocodilians had supposedly evolved at a slightly later time than right now, but-"

"What your people are doing?" Christine interrupted the Scottish scientist crossly. (Honestly, professor Nick Cutter looked a lot like his father, but behaved much less stoically.)

"Hmm?" Lester nonchalantly looked in that direction. "Oh, that's okay. Sure, Connor can be troublesome, but Abby's with him – she will keep him under control."

"That makes me feel so much better," Christine muttered, before she was interrupted once again.

"Sir," captain Becker turned to his immediate superior. "There _is_ something stalking us, I'm sure-"

"How big?" Lester exhaled.

"Well," Becker hesitated, and then it became too late. Connor and Abby came over to Christine's science-related minions, the two devices, having come into contact with each other, reacted...

...And everyone found himself or herself back in the 21st century London, in Christine Johnson's compound rather than the ARC, and that included the dinosaurs.

Yes, dinosaurs, as in plural.

_TBC_


	7. Chapter 5 (part 2)

**Chapter 5 (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters_

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series_

One of the dinosaurs, of course, was that youngster who decided to hang around Christine Johnson's group even after the attack of the giant crocodile (or alligator), so that was okay, more or less. But the other dinosaurs were small, bipedal reptiles (especially by the standards of the dinosaurs), who, upon being discovered, whirled around and fled down the corridor.

"What were they?" Lester enquired of Nick, almost emotionlessly.

"_Troodon_, I think," the Scottish scientist delivered. "I didn't have a good look at them."

"I _told _you that were being stalked!" Becker said, triumphantly. "But did you listen? No!"

"Shut up," Lester curtly replied, before turning back to Nick. "Are they dangerous?"

"You saw them for yourself – they're roughly the size of big dog," Nick replied, "and about as dangerous." He paused. "That said, most of us haven't been here before, so what can be expected here?"

"Nothing!" Christine said quickly. "In fact, you shouldn't be here – this is government property-"

"And the Center is part of the government," James Lester firmly replied. "Johnson, what are you hiding here?"

"None of your business!" Christine snapped back. "This isn't-"

"Excuse me," Sarah Page piped up, "but can you check the local security cameras regarding the dinosaurs' whereabouts? Also, Ms. Wickers had a bit too much excitement for one day, so can she please get a ride home?"

"Good idea," Christine nodded magnanimously. "Wilder, do that!"

The head of her security forces nodded and left. Sadly for him and Christine, Helen and several of the ARC (the field team, basically) went off after him.

"Hey," Christine began, but was interrupted by the juvenile plant-eater that nudged and nuzzled her again. "Stop it!"

The dinosaur just looked at her, and Christine switched her science-related underlings instead. "How long will it take to send him home?" she asked, pointing to the dinosaur.

"Several hours, till the device charges again," came the reply. "The device of Mr. Lester caused a premature discharge, so it will take the better part of the day – make it night, since it's eight p.m. now, night-time."

"Splendid," Christine grimaced. "And until then, the device is useless?"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far-" The scientist fell silent before Christine's glare. "Um-"

"You two," the woman civil servant pointed to two of her scientific underlings at random, "keep an eye on the invention while the rest of you deal with the dinosaur!" She turned to Lester. "James-"

But James' attention was elsewhere at the moment.

/

Wilder may have had plenty of flaws, but he also had plenty of experience, and he knew, when he was being stalked. Abruptly, he whirled around and came face to face with-

"Becker," he relaxed slightly. "Why are you following me?"

"To double-check the security feed with you," the younger man gave Wilder a look.

"You don't trust us?"

"No."

Wilder thought about this. "Fair enough," he agreed. "Try to be discreet, though-"

It was then that an inhuman howl came through the building's corridors...

/

_Meanwhile..._

As far as dinosaurs went, troodons were the bright sparks: small, inquisitive reptiles that were naturally curious and rather intelligent. Consequently, it did not take them long to find a door that smelled relatively attractive. Dangerous, but also attractive: it smelled of a big carnivore, and while big carnivores meant risk, they also meant scraps of food for the small dinosaurs.

The door was secured and locked, but that did not deter the troodons any: they found a ventilation shaft whose cover was not as secure as the others were, and broke in.

And when they did... an inhuman howl sounded throughout the building

/

_Meanwhile..._

"Nick," Jenny Lewis spoke up firmly though kindly (somewhat). "Where are you going?"

"Out. To clear my head," Nick confessed.

"Why?"

"I am not sure," Nick confessed, but slowed down all the same. "Jenny, look. When it all began, Connor, and to a lesser extent, Abby, claimed that the ARC team was changing. I ignored them, and got shipped off as a result. Now, however, I do see that they are right, the ARC team is changing and has changed, and I don't deal with change very well."

"Nick," Jenny said slowly, "are you saying that you're afraid?"

"I'm saying that I have issues," Nick shrugged. "I initially got involved with this whole situation because I wanted to discover what has happened to Helen. Then – what happened to Claudia Brown. Now I know the first, know that I will never resign the latter, and have lost Stephen in the process."

"What about me?" Jenny asked quietly.

"I don't know," Nick confessed. "Jenny, why did you stay with me? Helen and her histrionics about my family may be over the top, but she is not off the mark entirely either. There are other people, your ex-fiancé aside – people who are richer, better looking, smarter than I am-"

"Nick," Jenny quietly said. "This is not you."

"Who am I, then?" Nick said flatly. "Ms. Lewis, it's your turn."

"Fine!" Jenny snapped and flung open the door. "Let's go in here."

"Sure – is that a time anomaly?"

"Nice try," Jenny gave a customary look in that direction and blinked. "You know, I think it is. Guess we know now where Ms. Johnson got the materials for her invention."

An armored leg emerged from the sphere of chromatically white light, followed by another and an equally armoured head. "Nick, what is it?" the PR agent whispered.

"An armored dinosaur of some sort," Nick said thoughtfully. "Normally, I would say that they're harmless, but-"

The dinosaur opened its mouth and emitted a loud grunting and coughing cry. "Nick, do something," Jenny whispered.

/

_Meanwhile..._

"What was that?" Becker quietly asked his ex-commander.

Instead of replying, Wilder rushed forwards, pulling out his firearm. Becker, not willing to remain behind, especially under such circumstances, followed suit. They rushed as fast as they could, but they were too late, as a grey-skinned, hairless horror burst at them, its jaws dripping blood, though it appeared to be unhurt.

"That's not good," Becker muttered to the other man, when a glass flask shattered before them, releasing a rather nasty smell into the air.

The horror froze, and tentatively began to smell the air, its posture shifting from attacking to more furtive.

A figure stepped from the shadows. Helen Cutter. In one of her hands she held a hand harmonica with which she made a series of harsh sounds.

The animal stiffened even more and carefully turned around to face her, still sniffing the air, seeing how it had no eyes.

Helen revealed the object in her other hand: a glass and plastic box of some sort. She pressed something on it, and a time anomaly sprung into existence.

The futuristic animal gave another sniff, emitted a shrill cry and jumped into the time anomaly, which vanished the next moment.

Wilder opened his mouth to say something, but Helen spoke first.

"Are there any more?" and her voice was as humane as wind at the end of autumn.

/

"Nick, do something," Jenny whispered, as the two of them crouched on the floor, eyeing the dinosaur, which chose that moment to fart. A deep stench of methane spread through the modest-sized chamber, and Jenny, feeling rather absurd at the moment, giggled.

The dinosaur, which until then was happy enough to ignore them, literally swung into action by swinging its tail: contrary to Nick's expectations, it was not a smooth hammer of bone; rather, it was covered with sword-like blades of keratin, clearly sharp enough to slice through both of them with one swing...

...And also sharp enough to gouge deep openings in the wall where they hit.

On the other hand, though, the dinosaur clearly hesitated, finally realizing in its small brain that it did not belong in this place (and time). Consequently, it hesitated once more and emitted yet another cry.

This time Jenny (as well as Nick) was cowed enough by the dinosaur's display not make any sort of reply; consequently, the dinosaur, feeling mollified, retreated back into the time anomaly, which, fortunately, snapped shut after this, leaving behind nothing, but some gouges – some _deep_ gouges – in one of the walls, and some sharp slivers of keratin from its tail blades as well.

"Oh my," Jenny could only say. "Nick-"

It was then that they heard sounds of someone retching and crying, someone familiar.

"Connor?" Nick asked, as he helped Jenny get up.

/

_Meanwhile..._

"Are there any more?" Helen asked, looking Wilder right in the eyes.

Wilder was professional soldier, and lately had been stared at by Christine Johnson a lot, as the civil servant was often in need of a scapegoat, though Wilder had to admit that she mellowed down somewhat lately.

Compared to Helen, Christine's glares were _human_. Helen's eyes (at least in Wilder's imagination), were two black pits into nothingness, and her face – a skull wrapped in weather-tanned skin.

"Well?" the skull enquired, flashing two rows of teeth. "It's important that you answer me."

There was a sound not unlike that of a drawn knife, and Wilder's nerve broke. "No, ma'am," he whispered quietly. "There are none. There was just one-"

"Good," Helen withdrew from Wilder's personal space and looked like an ordinary human woman again, and a rather tired one at that. "One is usually enough and two or three is over the top." She turned towards the corridor. "Connor?"

"I'm okay," Abby answered instead, weakly. "Those poor dinosaurs-"

"The predator in question was half-starved and rather angry. Two dog-sized dinosaurs were not going to be much of a challenge to it after all this conditioning," Helen replied. "Sorry that you had to see this."

"Future predators, a time anomaly, what is going on here?" Nick muttered angrily, as he and Jenny joined the others in the corridor.

"An alternative to your Research Center," Christine Johnson appeared in the corridor as well, "and you people have outstayed your welcome!"

"Do we want a confrontation right now?" Lester appeared next to his female counterpart. "No? Then let's go."

The ARC team turned to leave. "Wait," their not-so-gracious hostess exhaled in defeat. "There's one other dinosaur left – the duck-billed herbivore, remember? Until the time anomaly generator is fully recharged, what should I-we feed it?"

"Foliage, primarily," Nick said thoughtfully. "No grass, since it didn't exist in the Cretaceous at all."

"Really?" Lester could not hold his surprise. "I thought that that was just our luck – you know, sandy beaches, dense woodland... no grass?"

"None whatsoever," Nick shook his head. "It appeared much later, during the Miocene, right Helen?"

If Helen was surprised by Nick's request for support, she did not show it. "Yes," she said curtly, "though I never been to the Miocene, not really. Or did I..." she grew thoughtful and withdrawn.

"And on this upbeat note, Christine, we take our leave," James Lester said brightly. "Nick Cutter will e-mail you the dinosaur diet notes. Everyone, take the hand of your partner – our tour of chateau Johnson is over!"

"...I hate you," Christine muttered quietly to him, but her heart was not in it.

/

As the ARC personnel drove home, it was not very surprising that Helen shared a car with the ARC field team, rather than with her estranged husband and his new girlfriend. "So," Becker spoke when it became obvious that Helen was not going to produce her intimidating face, "how were you able to get rid of that – that thing?"

"Your friends call it the future predator, and I was able to send it back to its time," Helen shrugged, not really there. "Two centuries from now that sort of thing will be very popular on Earth. Moderately widespread, too."

"I see," Becker said, but Helen was not done.

"What's wrong with Abby?" she turned to Connor. "She is really out of it, as you young people say."

"We saw what the future predator did to those two _Troodon_," Connor said simply. "We've seen death before, but this didn't make their demise any easier." He paused.

"No, and it's not supposed to," Helen shook her head. "When Stephen died, I went sort of insane, as you know, and I have seen death before, and I beaten it personally several times."

"How?" Becker could not help but ask.

"You know... I survived months of Triassic drought and the gas explosion at what is now the Messel pits... I survived months of being stuck on a Jurassic island and a long trip by self-made boat through the late Eocene seas... I survived a long trek through the Carboniferous after being bitten by one of the local arachnids and a long time in the Jurassic scrubland..."

"Was that before or after the island?" Connor sceptically asked.

"Well, I was stuck there _after_ the island incident, but it was an _earlier_ time period than that same island incident," Helen shrugged simply. "Does that clarify things? Anyways, I could have died at any time, but I did my best not to, and you know? Surviving this sort of thing does get easier with experience. Does it make you feel better, miss Maitland?"

"Not really, because it's not the same thing and you know it," Abby shook her head, "and please, call me Abby. Connor may enjoy being called 'young Temple' for some bizarre reason, and for Becker being called captain is clearly a source of pride, but calling me Abby is fine. After all, we are friends."

"We are?" everyone incredulously looked at Abby.

"Yes," Abby said firmly. "We are. Leek has tricked you as much as he has tricked anyone else, so yeah, you have another chance – and so far you have not squandered it. So... what I said," Abby finished, rather lamely.

"I see," Helen nodded thoughtfully. "Well, as you may already know, I'm beginning the final stage of our divorce later this week, if all goes well, you're invited to my party; sorry if it sounds crude, but you are."

"You're finalizing your divorce?"

"No. Didn't Nick tell you?"

"No. Do you want any gifts?"

"No. Sarah Page and a couple of people that I know are also coming over. Just do not expect James Lester. Or Lucrezia Borgia," Helen said firmly. "Oi, Becker, this is my stop. Can you please let me out?"

"Fine," Becker nodded curtly, and together with Abby and Connor he watched Helen disappear down the street. "Does anyone else notice her distraction about the futuristic device?"

"Not really," Connor shook his head. "We've already seen the original version of it, you know, just now, at Christine Johnson's place. You know?"

"Oh." Becker blinked. "I didn't think of that."

"That's okay," Connor said kindly. "That what Abby and I are for."

Becker paused. "Never talk to me like that again, got it?"

"Fine," was the reply. "Since Abby is still out of it, you want to go and get hot coffee and muffins?"

"How about a sandwich as well?"

"It's a deal!" Abby said more brightly than before, and the three friends drove off to get some hot coffee and sugar.

End


	8. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

"Lester," Christine Johnson said with a customary smile, more of a grimace, really. "I'm surprised to see you here, personally."

The other civil servant eyed her emotionlessly, before speaking up at last. "Cut it out, Christine. Cutter is divorcing his wife, practically everyone else went out to lend support to one of him or her, and so I had no choice. Ms. Wickers here agreed to be a credible witness...reluctantly."

"Yes, exactly," Lorraine, who would have rather went off with Sarah Page to court nodded in support, reluctant indeed.

"Oh, cry me a river," Christine ignored her. "The dinosaur was clueless, wanted food and company, and it is gassy, but frankly? You were worse. In fact, considering your feeble attempts at humour, you still are."

"Fine," This time James Lester really was annoyed. "Fire up your Frankenstein and let's see if it delivers."

"It does," the same scientific-related underling who was the spokesperson for that group last time spoke up once again. "We have, um, removed the faulty programming and the wiring that latched on to your peoples' signal, Mr. Lester, last time. This time it should go without a hitch. See?" And he pressed the button.

There was a pause, as several people and one juvenile dinosaur found themselves neither in the 21st century London nor on the shores of Cretaceous inland sea, but somewhere else entirely, thought the surroundings were familiar, more or less.

"Without a hitch, eh?" If looks could kill, the guilty underling would already be dead. "You incongruous, incompetent-"

"Calm down, Johnson," James Lester tried to be the voice of reason...with limited success. "Maybe those are the results of totally new hitches, ones that your people weren't expecting." He paused. "Though yes, I have to admit that this does look a lot like your old ones, eh?"

"But, but we've gone over everything. Your Mr. Temple – he helped. We checked! We could not have piggybacked on your signal-"

"Because you haven't in the first place," yet another voice interrupted the helpless flunky as Geraldine de Veux, the superior of Lester and Johnson, emerged on the scene. "In fact, last time it was the other way around, but since you did manage to prevent _that_ mistake from repeating itself, good."

"Ma'am, what are you doing here? You're not behind this?" Lester asked firmly, seeing how Johnson fell silent: last time their superior came to see her, it ended rather badly for the younger woman and now Christine had no intention of repeating _her_ pervious mistakes either.

"No," the minister ignored him as she fixed her bespectacled gaze upon the time anomaly manifesting machine. "I actually got drawn by it here, to the early Triassic. Hmm. Johnson, I am impressed. You're actually started doing that might be useful to the future and in the future."

"Does that mean that you're bringing us back?" Lester asked hopefully.

"No," the minister said flatly. "I'm bringing your invention back, that is all, and only because it is completely non-transportable and I've got a vested interest in it, after all. If you want to get out, though, you will have to go down the slope and across the river. It is not far, roughly twenty-four hours away. You should make it without too many losses, if any."

"Ma'am," Lester exhaled. "What's the point?"

"I have no idea," his interlocutrix replied beatifically, before removing herself and the time anomaly manifestation device off the scene in a burst of chromatically white light, practically the same as manifested by the time anomalies.

As soon as the other woman was gone, Christine sagged, just like a puppet with cut strings. "How did she-?" she asked rhetorically.

"Nanotechnological cyborg from the future, apparently," James replied, blandly. "Anyways, if we're all set-"

There was a crashing sound from the tangle ferns and small conifer shrubs, and out emerged... Lorraine Wickers, followed closely by a pack, or rather a herd, of relatively small, pig-sized animals whose beaks, absent ears and sprawling gait showed to be reptiles, rather than mammals.

"...I think that you've been spending too much time with your scientist friends, James," Christine said flatly. "That sort of information is interesting only if it is important, and-"

"Fine," James shook his head. "Ms. Wickers, where were you?"

"Sorry sir," Lorraine turned red. "There was this rather amusing lizard running around and chasing dragonflies, so I instinctively followed it, out of curiosity, and then it got eaten by a small dinosaur and I was scared and hid behind a tree, and then the dinosaur went away, and-"

"Wait." Wilder said suddenly. "A small dinosaur?"

"Yes, about as tall as that fern over there." Lorraine pointed to shrub in question.

There was a pause as everyone looked over at the plant. "You sure that it was a dinosaur?" James Lester finally asked. "Not another amusing lizard?"

"No sir, Mr. Lester sir," Lorraine said, crestfallen. "What do we do now?"

"Madame minister did said something about going down a slope and across a river," Lester confessed. "Did you see anything resembling a slope?"

"I have," Wilder said suddenly. "In fact, I still do. It's right behind us, and those pig-like reptiles are going downwards – down the slope, so to speak."

This statement caused even more excitement as everyone generally came over and looked downwards. "It's not steep but it's not gentle either," Lester confessed. "Christine, how will your dinosaur handle it?"

"Better than me in those high heels," the female civil servant confessed. "Of course- where's the dinosaur?"

There was a pause and everyone looked around. Amazingly, but the crested dinosaur as big as an Asian rhino and with a long curved-like crest on its head _was_ missing. "Let me guess – we're going to look for it?"

"Yes," Lester nodded humorously, "we will."

/

Fortunately, and contrary to James Lester's expectations, the duck-billed dinosaur was found not too long afterwards. It was drinking from a small stream that ticked gently through a much deeper riverbed, probably a victim of a spring/summer drought or something similar.

"There you are!" exclaimed Christine, just as Lorraine noticed something else:

"Hey! That is my lizard! Well, not mine, Mr. Lester, but still-"

Looking rather excited, Lorraine followed the other woman down into the creek bed.

"I seriously doubt that that is the slope meant by Geraldine," Lester quietly muttered and followed the others down into the mostly dry riverbed.

Once there, the situation's development slowed down even more, as the dinosaur refused to budge. "Oh, come on, you cannot be that thirsty!" James snapped and Christine gave him a look. Lester reciprocated it, and before long the two civil servants were circling each other like a pair of testosterone-driven roosters trying to impress a hen.

"Excuse me," Lorraine carefully sat on a log protruding from a riverbank – it was drier – and turned to Wilder. "Do they do that sort of thing often?"

"Not really – I think the dinosaur is making it worse," Wilder confessed, before pausing: something was wrong.

Lorraine noticed it too. "Weren't there more of you? I mean yes, there were, but they followed the herd of those mammal-like reptiles down the slope."

"So have we," Wilder decided to argue, because agreeing with Lester's secretary would have been just too depressing. "This river bed is going downwards, see?"

There was a slight pause as Lorraine thought this over. "Well," she began, "I don't think – do you smell smoke?"

It was Wilder's turn to pause, smell the air and grow very worried. "Ms. Johnson, Mr. Lester," he cried out to the civil servants. "We've got a forest fire and it's coming this way!"

There was a pause as the two civil servants (by now rather sodden and dirty from the waist down) stopped to process Wilder's outcry. The dinosaur, however, did not: instead it took a sniff of air and began to run down the creek.

"Hey!" instinctively, Christine followed 'her' dinosaur, Lester followed her, and Wilder with Lorraine followed them due to lack of options. Together, the mismatched quintet picked up speed (the dinosaur faster than the others did) down the riverbed, until...

...its shores became much shallower and it shifted sharply downwards.

/

Later on Lester never really understood just how was he able to grab Christine before she went tumbling down the dried out waterfall the way her pet did. Of course, then Wilder did grab him and Lorraine...actually stopped of her own accord, so that was moot. No one was able to grab the dinosaur (fortunately, since even as a juvenile it weighted more than the four humans did all together), and it just vanished, falling and rolling downwards, in a cloud of dust.

"He's... gone," Christine whispered and just sat there, at the edge.

"I know," James nodded in agreement. "If this was our mammoth-"

"Mammoth what?"

"Noun, not adjective. Think giant prehistoric elephant."

"Oh yes, and it was hairy."

"Ours isn't. But it's even hairier than the hairy ones."

"Is that possible?"

"Um, forest fire still behind us," Wilder said carefully, though it had not been necessary: the smell of smoke was already noticeable even by distracted civil servants.

"Do we have any other choice?" Christine asked wearily as they got to their feet.

"No."

And they began to descend.

/

On one level, the physical one, descending down the rocky slope was not too physically hard: there was less vegetation down and the forest fire appeared to have slowed down by this time. That said, the mood of those descending was grim: the loss of the dinosaur did hit them hard, because it was a loss.

"If Cutter and others do this regularly," Lester muttered quietly to Lorraine, lagging behind to catch up with her, "no wonder that they have issues. Great outdoor? Great compared to what?"

"I know sir, it's just... something that must be experienced at least once," Lorraine added weakly, "just to prevent wondering."

James thought about it. "Is it because of Dr. Page? I know that the two of you have been gossiping-"

"Not really. It's more of a 'me' thing, I suppose."

Lorraine was unable to elaborate further since at that moment the ground levelled out, and the foursome saw their former dinosaur companion. It was dead, and it was twitching. The twitching was produced by two or three creatures, looking rather reptilian, especially around the face, but covered with fur and possessing noticeable whiskers.

Upon the approach of humans the animals snarled, revealing mouths armed with sabre-like fangs that looked almost like those of large snakes, but proportionally even bigger. Something glistened on them – maybe saliva, maybe body fluids of their prey, but even so...

"Ma'am, I strongly advise you against confrontation," Wilder muttered to his erstwhile employer.

"Then how we get around them?" the female civil servant snapped back. "Our path goes that way-"

"No, it doesn't," Lorraine said quietly. "We don't even know where we are. And besides, what is this? Some sort of a computer quest? Go there, I know not where, bring back what I know not?"

"No," Lester agreed after a thoughtful pause. "It's not. That said, our superior at the ministry is a centuries-old nanotechnological cyborg who was able to generate a time anomaly without any visible devices, so her suggestion is worth checking out, at least." He paused and added. "And yes, if it means going away from hungry and unknown predators, I'm doubly for it."

"Never a risk taker, are you, James?" the other civil servant said, bitterly.

"No," Lester agreed, "and maybe I'm wrong, but that has suited me well, so I'm not going to change just now, because you want to-"

"And that is our relationship at its basic-"

The prehistoric predators growled – loudly, threateningly. "Let's go," Christine said wearily. "I cannot take this anymore, and that goes double for you, James Lester!"

Instead of replying, James just turned around and walked away. Several heartbeats later the others followed him.

Sadly, it included some of the local carnivores.

/

Several minutes later the fact that some of the carnivores, clearly disliking dinosaur meat tens of millions of years before it evolved, have decided to go for human instead, or at least – to taste it just enough to figure out of it was more edible than dinosaur.

As the animals began to encircle the humans, James Lester's already strained patience broke. "Cutter" he yelled into the sky. "Anyone! Get us out of this insanity and misery...anyhow!"

Instead of a coherent reply there came a loud hissing sound as Lester and others found themselves on a shore of a river – this one fully flooded, deep, and complete with some proto-crocodiles with longer legs than those of the modern species. They took another good look at the new arrivals and hissed, revealing a particularly wicked pair of fangs in the front of the upper jaw.

The furry pseudo-mammals took one good look at the new arrivals and fled. The chronologically displaced humans were not so lucky.

"Cutter!" Lester spat. "Where the Hell is you?"

"Right here, Mr. Lester, and can you be not so loud? Those basal archosaurs can hear noises, especially loud ones, just fine," Nick Cutter looked from around the bend in the shoreline.

There was a pause as two men just stared silently at each other. "Please tell me that there was a time anomaly involved somehow in you being here," Lester spoke.

"Yes," Nick nodded. "Right in the court. A small reptile – possibly a _Euparkeria_ came through, but we got it under control now. How did you get here?"

"Johnson's device. It seems to be working in a completely different way – or...you know what? We have lost her dinosaur, lost our footwear, and several of her people appear to be eaten by the local wildlife. I will tell you all about it later, once we get back to the modern times," Lester exhaled, and there was something, possibly his bedraggled appearance, that helped him get his message across to the other man and to let them pass...

/

It was several hours later, and the sun was setting. Lester and the others (yes, even Christine and Wilder) were in the ARC's medical bay, being treated over. Fortunately, most of their physical damage was superficial and they would be all right by the end of the week at most.

"And that was when professor Cutter made his appearance like a Jack from the box," Lester finished. "The end. And now, I got some questions, starting with any ideas as to what went wrong?"

"Ms. Johnson's machine: it latches onto the energy manifested by any time anomalies that appear before and transports everyone within a certain radius to that epoch," Connor said thoughtfully. "Our time anomaly detector latched onto _it_ instead, but we've dealt with that. Now her device will need to be adjusted-"

"Considering that the actual inventor got eaten this will be hard," Lester commented.

"No, they came into the time anomaly alongside the archosaurs, though very exhausted," Connor shook his head. "They're briefing Ms. Johnson as we speak."

"Oh," Lester paused, and then made a decision. "What the Hell. She lost her dinosaur and been reduced practically to a video game character alongside the rest of us. She deserves a break."

"I hear you!" Helen said brightly as she came in. "Gigi is incredibly old and her sanity is something else entirely, and as such she does tend to see people as chess pieces." She paused. "Got to admit, if Stephen didn't die, I probably would've ended up in the same way. That's not my point, though."

"Really? What is your point?" Lester said crossly.

"I got you a hot meal."

"I do not need a hot meal-" Lester caught a whiff of it. "Yes, okay, I could use one after all. Maybe today was the end of a bad streak or something."

Sometime in the future James Lester was going to regret saying this, but for now, all _was_ well in the world.

End


	9. Chapter 7 (part 1)

**Chapter 7 (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

"Thirteenth. That's the due date. Thirteenth." Mick Harper morosely told Danny Quinn. "And thanks to you, I have more and less than nothing. That's just wrong."

His interlocutor, the detective-constable, listened with a barely hidden irritation. Frankly, he would not have accepted Harper's invitation in the first place, except that there was nothing good on the television, and his vacation wasn't over yet, so – no work. Feeling more than merely boring, Quinn had accepted the invitation, and found himself in some sort of a teashop at a shopping center where you could taste tea and hang out with your friends.

The problem was not the tea, though Danny Quinn did not care about it one way or another (and that was good, because the local exotic blends offered by the waiters tasted like something other than tea). The problem was company – Harper was not exactly a friend of the police officer, and frankly, if Quinn had any _close_ friends in the force he would have rather been with them rather than with the journalist, but he did not (and that was entirely his fault too).

And then, yes, there were the dinosaurs. Frankly, Quinn still did not like the ARC people, but... they _were_ government officials and messing with them could backfire upon him very badly, and his feud (if there was one in the beginning) was not worth it.

For Mick Harper, though, this was something else – an obsession to prove his truth to Katherine Kavanaugh, perhaps. Honestly, the dating life of Danny Quinn was non-existent, but even he could see that whatever relationship Harper and his boss had was unnecessarily complicated by both of them, and he wanted no piece of it.

And so, when it became obvious that Harper was engrossed enough in his rumbling to become unaware of his surroundings, Quinn got up to leave.

That is when he heard the screams.

/

"Abby? Why are we here?" Connor whined.

Abby sighed. The relationship between her and Connor might be unusual and undetermined, but clearly taking him with her to shop for new shoes was not the best idea. Connor's taste in shoes was just a little more than non-existent... but that did not stop him from flirting (with a surprising success) with one of the shopping assistants in the store. For some reason that annoyed Abby even more than his whining, so she told him to re-start doing the latter instead.

"I really should make new friends – preferably my age," Abby muttered not so much to Connor as to herself. "Maybe outside of the ARC, too. Sarah's okay, and Jenny's Jenny, and Helen proved to be a better person than I have thought, but still..."

"Abby?" Connor's voice changed from whining to something more professional. "We've got a time anomaly."

"What? Where?" Abby looked up and followed Connor's gaze to the stairwell outside the store, where a time anomaly twinkled, suspended in mid-air. "Damn. And I was just beginning to find a pair of shoes that I liked."

"Okay," Connor nodded. "First we call the Center – Lester, Becker and others. Then-"

The dinosaur emerged. It was somewhat shorter than the acro they had encountered in the collision center, but it was still far longer than a person was tall and had a bipedal built of a dinosaur carnivore.

"No, no, this is bad!" Connor wailed.

"And ugly. Don't forget ugly," Connor muttered.

"Yes," Abby muttered thoughtfully. "There's that. It looks like a mutant bulldog."

The dinosaur looked askance. Its muzzle may have been like that of a mutant bulldog, but it was built like a thick, low-slung, elongated snake with two relatively short hindlegs (the ones in the front were almost absent due to their really small size), a shape that was quite perfect for hunting in the restricted corridors of the shopping mall.

As the two ARC people realized it, there came a wail from the toy store next door.

"Mommy! I'm scared!"

The dinosaur shifted itself with a minimum of effort and charged with a short burst of speed into that direction.

"No!" Connor hoarsely cried as the dinosaur temporarily vanished from their line of sight and the sounds of crashing came from the next door. "Not the-"

A shrill cry interrupted the dinosaur's rampage next door.

"What the-?"

/

Contrary to what Danny Quinn might have been thinking, Mick Harper was not fully out of it – after all, it is hard to get drunk on tea, even if it is made from something sounding suspiciously like "eucalyptus and orange blossoms". It just did not have the same buzz as the alcohol did, frankly, though it did taste somewhat like toothpaste, or was that-

And then the dinosaur arrived. Sure, it was smaller than Quinn described it, possibly longer, but it was real – you could not get drunken hallucinations from tea. Mick Harper finally had his dinosaur... in a manner of speaking.

Sure, it was not that much taller than a human, but it was several times longer, roughly 5 to 7 meters in length, and all muscle, especially in that brawny neck and muzzle – just like a bulldog, that one was.

And it had speed too, actually: the dinosaur charged into the toy store with barely a twitch of its muscular legs, and-

Something nudged his leg. Harper looked down, and a much smaller version of the dinosaur – covered in a white chick-like fluff – was nudging his leg, trying to bite him.

"Okay, this is better," the journalist muttered as he reached out and picked his assailant up.

The tiny dinosaur did not like this: it emitted a long screech, clearly calling out to its parent. Immediately, the elder dinosaur whirled around, smashing down stands of toys and toy-related paraphernalia, chunks of... stuff and liquid drooping from its jaws. It also charged at Harper, those same jaws opened wide for a precise and deadly bite.

Mick did not back down. He picked up a pot of orange blossom and eucalyptus tea (or whatever else it was), which was still very hot, and threw it into the charging reptile. The glass pot shuttered with a crushing sound and the dinosaur roared in anger, its charge halted, and it itself was in some distress now, less sure of what to do.

And then some young man in a crazy hat (seriously, who wore porkpie hats anymore?) jumped up to him, grabbed the young dinosaur and threw it... into some glowing hole in the staircase. The baby dinosaur emitted another piercing shriek and was gone. Growling softly, the big dinosaur followed and the hole disappeared.

"That was fast, lucky us!" Connor Temple said.

/

"You!" For once in his life Mick Harper found himself unable to speak coherently. "You! Do you know what you have done? You-"

"No," came the careful reply as Connor began to back away from the other man, seeing how the latter appeared ready to strangle him. "Apparently, I do not."

"Harper!" Danny Quinn chose this moment to appear on the scene carrying a prehistoric captive of his own. "Stop bothering them with your dinosaur stories! Look what I got!"

What Danny got was a toad big enough to swallow a raven-sized bird whole. England, of course, has its own toads, but they were far smaller than this one, shaped slightly differently, and well, they were not this.

Mick considered his actions quickly. A vanished baby dinosaur vs. a giant prehistoric toad? Yes, the choices were obvious. "Fine, let's go," he said quickly. "You still have those teeth of yours?"

"Yes," Danny agreed, regretting his re-appearance already. "Let's go."

"...What the Hell has happened?" Abby asked Connor as the two ARC field team members just stood there, gaping.

"I've no idea, but we must call Lester. And Jenny. That needs their touch."

/

Upon hearing this piece of news James Lester was justifiably upset. "What the Hell were you thinking, letting them walk away with a prehistoric toad? I mean yes, I understand that it is just a toad, but there is still the principle of the entire situation, you know? No, more than a principle, it is our entire duty to keep plants and animals from the future and past separate from the modern populace-"

"Mr. Lester?" If Lorraine's latest track through the early Triassic period had left a mark on her, it did not show. "It's the minister on the phone. She says that her sources told her that ITV is going to produce a dinosaur-related show within this day or the next and suggests that you do something about it."

"How about suggesting her to use her nanotechnological cybernetic powers – or whatever they're called – to shut the TV station down for a change?" Lester said sourly. "That sounds like something that would give her jollies."

"Yes, but it would also make you sound superfluous, and while I'm not sure what Gigi does to whatever or whomever she finds superfluous, it is nothing good," Helen said smoothly. She turned to Jenny, paused, and ploughed on. "What _is_ the ARC official policy on this sort of thing?"

"Denial," Jenny firmly said, though not looking Helen in the eye either. Not surprising, really, considering that Nick divorced Helen just earlier this week and the whole situation had been awkward, even before the time anomaly into the early Triassic manifested itself. "There are no dinosaurs or marsupial lions or future predators or what have you – not in the present, the here and now, you know?"

"Hmm," Helen chewed on her pencil as she wrote something down. "Why?"

"Er," Jenny looked to her superior.

"Just answer her," Lester said wearily. "Mrs. Cutter made so much noise about studying humans and their nature, her input might be useful."

"Of course it will," Helen replied nonchalantly. "She is a PR agent, you know? Relations with people is what she does."

There was a pause as Jenny turned red and Lester twitched and punched the plastic table so hard that it almost splintered into splits.

"You done?" he said flatly. "Yes, I understand that the final accords of you divorcing Cutter and becoming a free woman will be with us for a while, but still? Can we get a move _on_, for now?"

"Sure," Helen said easily, before shifting back to face the other woman. "My apologies. I just dreamed of a similar moment for a long time now, and it was just too good to pass. Anyways, I am guessing that this is something similar to the nuclear power in the 1950s – it is a positive force, but not for everyday use or even knowledge, correct?"

"That's right – but what I'm saying. You've been there already," Jenny said, showing a bit more tooth than the usual.

"Not really. I tend to avoid the recent past, and the historic period of Earth's evolution tends to have fewer natural and spontaneous time anomalies than any of the others. You want to talk about them – talk to Berenice. For an ex-princess of Egypt she's not all that intimidating, really."

"Yes, well," Jenny decided to drop the topic at hand. "Anyways, all we got to do is to talk to them and try to talk them out-"

"How about a compromise instead?" Lorraine decided to speak up. "It might be trickier, but it also may be easier than just having things go completely our way..."

"I'll think about that," Jenny promised Lorraine with all of the sincerity she could master and turned to Lester. "Should I call them?"

"Why not?" Lester just shrugged. "It's already been a bad day. Call them and see what the Hell will happen."

A brief while later a phone began to ring.

/

"Hello?"

"Who is this?"

"This is the ARC. You may have been expecting a call from us-"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Kind of," Jenny agreed. Helen thrust her a paper note. "Why are you doing this?" Jenny read off the note.

"Excuse me?" the other woman was clearly surprised, or at least startled, by the blunt question.

"You know," Jenny continued. "This. Yes, I know that it will create a sensation, but we also know that you do not have more than one giant prehistoric toad to go on. Why all the rush? Why all the determination?"

"That is none of your business," came the cold reply on the other end.

"True, but answer us all the same – who knows, we might even co-operate," Helen spoke up all of sudden.

There was a longer silence. "There are only two things that interest a journalist – truth and ratings," finally came the reply.

"There's no need to bribe or twist – thank God – the British journalist. Considering what he will do unbribed – there's no occasion to," Helen spoke loud and clear.

"I don't have to listen to this!" the other woman snapped and hanged-up.

There was a pause as everyone just stared at the former "Mrs. Cutter". "What were you thinking?" Jenny began to growl.

"That she was being coerced into this herself and I was right: she doesn't want to air this, but she cannot get out of it either," Helen replied.

"Interesting, but is it useful?" Jenny did not back down.

"Yes," Lester thoughtfully replied. "If we find out who's behind this we can adjust our strategy accordingly – and we will." He turned around and turned on the TV. "Today's ITV news shall be interesting."

And they were.

_TBC_


	10. Chapter 7 (part 2)

**Chapter 7 (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Nobody at the establishment in question was ready or willing to admit it, but the disappearance and the apparent demise of Christine Johnson's dinosaur had clearly left a mark on her. She missed it, somewhat, even if she would not admit it. And, considering that her laboratory was hers (pardon the repetition) everyone felt her loss and dejection quite keenly, even if she denied it.

For her own part, Christine was sure that the reason behind her foul mood (well, fouler than the usual) was her latest run-in with James Lester...something that was certainly true, at least to a point: whenever the two civil servants ran into each other, they got onto each other's nerves very quickly, and their mood would remain rotten for a long time. But still...

"Excuse me, ma'am?" by now Wilder acquired his own opinion of the situation, which was different from the others' and also quite private. "But there's some sort of a story on ITV about dinosaurs and a government conspiracy. Do you care to take a look?"

"It's ITV – what's there to see? The odds of them showing something actually related to the situation are miniscule," his superior grumbled. "Keep an eye on it, though, just in case it is something important or interesting."

"Yes ma'am," Wilder replied, not entirely pleased with the result. "I will."

And Christine Johnson was proven right.

/

Katherine Kavanaugh was currently in a bad mood of her own, and her annual late autumn cold had nothing to do with it, for a change. Mick Harper, her other usual source of this phenomenon, still was.

...When Mick Harper went onto his latest tangent, as it was customary for him, Katherine did not care. Mick did that on a regular basis, and as a rule he either uncovered what he would set out to, or quit. This time, however, it appeared to be just too ridiculous, even for ITV: time-travelling mammoths and dinosaurs among us. Katherine, never the one to mix words, told Mick so, and to her surprise, Mick delivered.

Well, in this case what he has delivered was a police officer ("a detective-constable") with some strange bones – maybe even dinosaur teeth, who knows? Surely some of them, real or fake, were available on E-bay, even with Mick's or a police officer's financial options? And if not, that officer, Danny, appeared to be quite handy, maybe he could have made them himself?

Katherine was not a particularly material person (well, no more than an average British citizen), but time-travelling dinosaurs and mammoths were something else. Katherine was sure that this was going to be one of those instances when Mick was going to back down and not deliver – but Mick delivered.

Well, what he had delivered was Danny the police officer, those dinosaur teeth of his, and also a giant toad. Katherine did not like toads, whether or not Shakespeare's declarations about them were bogus, and a giant one – even less so.

And... Katherine was loath to admit it, but a testimony of one reluctant (very reluctant) police officer, some not quite convincing dinosaur teeth and a giant toad that _was_ too large for a pet store, but still...

"We're on the air in 5, 4, 3," Katherine's assistant droned as Mick and the others gathered in their assigned spots.

Katherine shook her head. Her gut told her that this was going to be a disaster, and she did not know why.

And it was then that a time anomaly appeared and everything went apart since the dinosaur who exited through it was a carnivore. And it was angry.

Tall and graceful, rather like an oversized wading bird it looked around in a sort-of a snake-like fashion, gnashed its jaws, full of saw-like teeth, and then it charged.

"Are you recording this?" Katherine heard one of the camera staff members ask another before the dinosaur was upon them.

/

"Oh my God!" Abby exclaimed as the ITV channel went off the air "due to technical reasons", but the dinosaur with blood-dripping teeth and jaws had been seen clearly all the same. "Did you see that? That was the same juvenile T-Rex that had attacked us! Guys! They're all dead!"

"Yes, and since we can't roll back time, so are we. Well, technically speaking," Lester mused. "Even if we _had_ sent a representative to the TV station he or she would've been unarmed, and-" he paused. "Helen. Becker reported that you have some sort of a personal time travelling device. True or false?"

"You want to go back in time and save those people?" Helen specified, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. "I think...we can do that."

"And by 'we' you mean?"

"Your lady friend in the civil service – if she feels like it."

Lester twitched.

/

The Skype™ window on the tabletop computer opened wide.

"Lester," Christine almost managed to keep the gloating out of her voice. "You messed up bad. There is plenty of space for a plausible deniability maneuver, but it is still a black mark against you-"

"Yes, Johnson, yes. Now, my people believe that your contraption is good enough to save the people who got mauled and eaten, so if you don't mind, can you please let me talk to your techno-people so that they can execute the following maneuver?"

"...Now why would I do that?" Christine said after a prolonged pause.

"Do _you_ want to save those people or not?" came the flat reply.

"Fine, you can talk to them," Christine replied instead.

/

"What is she doing?" Jenny hissed to Nick as Helen told Connor's counterpart in Christine's Johnson's organization some sort of a technical sequence.

"I'm not sure," Nick confessed, unhappily. "She always was the more technical one in the family. True, it most involved the DVD and the VHR players and was largely foreplay-"

"Nick, not that and not now!"

"That's _is_ my point... no, wait. My point-" Nick did not finish. There was a flash of chromatically white light and...

...and everyone appeared to be where they previous were.

"What has happened?" Becker demanded.

"Check the time," Helen shrugged. "We went back in time approximately one hour. Is that enough time for you to mount a preventive strike against the dinosaur in question?"

Becker and the others did not reply. Instead they raced off to their designated destinations (and to get their designated supplies). Only Lester lagged behind.

"How did you that this would happen?" he asked Helen.

"That's because it is the same thing that has happened before – just on a lesser, more controlled extent," Helen shrugged. "All I did was add an extra modicum of instructions."

"Did it work?" Lester pressed on.

"That depends. What's on the TV?" And they began to watch.

/

About an hour later

"We're on the air in 5, 4, 3," Katherine's assistant droned as Mick and the others gathered in their assigned spots.

Katherine shook her head. Her gut told her that this was going to be a disaster, and she did not know why.

And it was then that a time anomaly appeared and everything went apart since the dinosaur who exited through it was a carnivore. And it was angry.

Tall and graceful, rather like an oversized wading bird it looked around in a sort-of a snake-like fashion, gnashed its jaws, full of saw-like teeth, and then it charged.

"Are you recording this?" Katherine heard one of the camera staff members ask another before the dinosaur was upon them.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Several tranquilizer rifles fired, startling everyone, especially the dinosaur, who was fired at, actually.

And yet the prehistoric reptile did not despair, or freak out, or anything. Rather, it dexterously dodged and twisted its long, runner-like body around, dodging all of the tranquilizer darts (though there were not many of them, admittedly) before charging at its new attackers, who scattered, trying to reload and to avoid its saw-like teeth, sharp claws and powerful hind legs.

"Got any more hot tea?" Danny materialized next to Mick as the camera crew dutifully recorded all of the excitement of the hunting dinosaur and escaping people.

"I'm not sure," Mick turned to Katherine. "Kat?"

"Oh, just use the toad!" the latter snapped and threw the oversized amphibian right at the dinosaur.

Sadly, Kat did not have a large amount of upper body strength and so her missile fell nowhere near the dinosaur with a profoundly loud "Croak!"

That stopped the dinosaur short as it stopped and began to curiously look at the toad – first from a distance and then more and more closely, circling around it.

"What? Didn't it see giant toads before?" Kat muttered indignantly. "They're from the same time and place."

"No, ma'am," Connor said as he and Abby helped her and the others to get away to a more safe place. "_Beelzebufo_ – that's the giant toad – lived on Madagascar, while the tyrannosaurs lived on mainland Asia and North America, miles away from the island, the same as in the modern times. So no, those two animals have never met."

"How nice," Kat muttered keeping on her eye on the unfolding scene. The giant toad, apparently, decided that it had enough and it clamped its vice-like jaws on the dinosaur's nose.

The dinosaur did not appreciate this: it jumped away and began to desperate shake its head, trying to shake-off its antagonist.

As it did, things got worse: with a loud roar a second, much older and bigger T-Rex emerged from the time anomaly.

The first dinosaur jerked its head so violently that the giant toad went flying into Jenny's arms, who immediately dropped it with a well-deserved "Ew!"

As she did, the first dinosaur lunged and the jaws of the second T-Rex clumped down, shaking its younger relative with the same ease as the first dinosaur dealt with giant toads (and humans). And as it turned around left back through the time anomaly carrying its gristly trophy in the jaws, several people present had to turn around and vomit.

And the giant toad, of course, chose to remind them about itself by emitting another booming croak.

/

"So, those things have been occurring throughout history?" Katherine asked Jenny some time later as the stage was being cleaned-up after the tyrannosaurs visit.

"Pretty much yes," Jenny nodded, while glaring at Nick and Connor indicating that they should keep their comments to themselves. "We're talking about as early as ancient Egypt with its pyramids and the Sphinx and all."

"The Sphinx was a dinosaur?"

"No, a prehistoric crocodile was the ancient Egyptians' hell hound or something," Jenny shook her head. "Is it really important?"

"No, not really," Kat shook her head. "It's not like we're going to go on the air with this-"

"Yes, especially since we've been on the air already all this time, sorry," Connor finally gathered enough courage to interrupt. "It's just that no one realized this or forgot when the dinosaurs appeared."

There was a pause as everyone looked at Connor, then at each other, and then at the apparently running camera.

"Sorry," one of the camera crew confessed. "When the first T-Rex came through and started to mess with the people and the toad, well-"

"Croak!" For a prehistoric amphibian, the toad was seemingly intelligent enough to realize when people were talking about it and react accordingly.

"Yes, that," the camera crewmember confessed. "Anyways-"

"Look," Jenny exhaled. "Right now those time anomalies? They are in a position similar to where the nuclear power _in general_ was after WWII. The government knows about it, knows some things about its potential, its properties, and so on, but it is nowhere near ready to handle it yet, and there are always some people ready to abuse it – last time this happened some of our friends died and we've recovered only recently..."

"Oh," Katherine looked away. After today's dinosaur encounter she could easily imagine how this sort of thing could go that way. "Anyways-"

"Well, it's not that bad. We're making inroads now – that's how we were able to come here so timely," Nick interrupted, trying to lighten the mood and rather succeeding.

"Oh?" Mick Harper appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Can I quote you on that?"

"Yes," Jenny gave him a glare: she still found the journalist obnoxious. "And nothing else."

Mick nodded, grinning. His hunch has paid off, as always, ITV's ratings will go up (at least for a while), and no one actually got eaten by a dinosaur.

What more could a journalist ask for?

End


	11. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

"This is cosy," Sarah muttered to Abby as Becker drove both of them (and himself, of course) to the site of the latest (supposed) time anomaly. "I got to confess, however – after the prehistoric crocodile and Ms. Johnson's misfire, I haven't been much in the field."

"That's okay, we can handle this," Abby shook her head. "After all, as Becker has pointed out, there were no shouts of pain or screams in the background, which tends to rule out such time-travelling animals as the raptors."

"Really?" Sarah paused. "Connor told me about you encountering them in the employment center – he said that they weren't so tough."

"Yes, well, this same Connor is currently complaining about his laptop computer crashing twice within the same hour, so you've got to take his advice with a grain of salt, so to speak," Abby crossly replied.

"Oh? Is it job-related?"

"No, it's Connor-related," Abby exhaled. "Porn is one thing, I can handle that, I suppose – they got anti-virus programs for that and all. He, however, spends most of his time playing those online games with his friends and now he crashed his computer while still uploading his saves or whatever! And now it's all lost!"

Abby paused, took a deep breath, and blinked. "I'm rumbling, aren't you?" she asked, much more quietly.

"Yup," Sarah nodded. "Still... no. No. Look, I am still single and all and I agreed to come with you in part because I have been listening to Jenny all morning discussing whether or not Nick is really allergic to her new perfume or if he just has a cold, so can you not do the same thing, please? I really cannot handle this if I'm to be hearing this all day long."

Abby thought about this. Sarah was generally a mild-mannered person, so for her to go so directly was rather out of character, which meant that Jenny had really strained her patience earlier today, which meant that Sarah really had a point.

"Fine," she exhaled, "I mean, sorry, Sarah. It's just that, well..." she paused. "There aren't many topics to talk about in the ARC. There are our personal lives, our jobs, the dinosaurs and any other prehistoric or futuristic animals that come this way... Besides, you and Lorraine appear to have gotten along – what have that two of _you_ been talking about?"

"How tough it is for two single women who... aren't as young as they have been, find dates or have any social life when your work is... our work," Sarah explained. "You wouldn't happen to have any single friends, do you?"

"Well, there's Becker," Abby said thoughtfully. "Hey, Becker, want to take Sarah out on a date?"

"Sure," the ex-soldier said in a rather cross tone of voice. "We're here, though."

/

Becker wouldn't admit it, but on this mission? He was actually missing Connor. You could always count on the younger man to keep Abby's estrogen in check. Take for example their last outing together: Abby decided to talk about shoes – women's shoes – for some reason. She tried to involve Becker, which was anti-productive, and then she tried to involve Connor.

That was even more anti-productive, seeing how Connor's take on everything was unique – he should probably have it trademarked so that everyone else (who was sane, anyways) would stay far away from it as possible, including Abby. After all, what sane person, after hearing his girlfriend/female partner/whoever talk about shoes, start to talk about professor Dumbledore and whether or not he was more manly than Aziraphale? No one, that is for sure, and the fact that Abby stopped talking about shoes after that was an added bonus.

But now, there was Sarah, and Sarah did like to talk about shoes, especially with Abby. Listening to them chat about shoes as they sought the time anomaly made Becker desperately want to do something manly, like pee standing upright...

"There! There it is!" Sarah suddenly exclaimed, as the trio converged on the small swimming pool in the backyard. "It's a crocodile!"

"It is... not," Abby said slowly as the trio approached the reptile that hissed and snapped its jaws, but did not leave the swimming pool. "Sarah, that device of Connor isn't reacting, is it?"

"No, no it's not," the older woman agreed, as she looked at the device once again. "I'm guessing that the time anomaly has already closed?"

"More like it has never opened," Abby said glumly. "This is a juvenile specimen of the modern American alligator, and I seriously doubt that it has come through a time anomaly in the first place."

/

The crocodile – well, alligator – in question may have been modern, but it was also a nippy little bastard with a fully functioning set of jaws. The fact that Becker didn't like crocodiles and alligators, thinking that they were the same bad old dinosaurs, just living a more aquatic life style, and as such he wasn't particularly gentle with little reptile, something that arose Abby's wrath... But all bad things come to an end. The little alligator was subdued, immobilized and captured (though not in that order as various bites, slaps and scratches on the field team's hands and arms could testify) and all that was left to do was to figure out what to do next, basically.

"So do we bring it to the zoo or what?" Sarah asked gently as she bandaged Becker's nose – the little reptile had almost bitten him on a nostril.

"Or what," Abby said quietly. "It's illegal to keep those animals outside of a zoo, so we have to notify the police first."

There was a pause as the other two people exclaimed. "Bugger."

/

Throughout most of his life, Danny Quinn had avoided fame, and now that he had found it, he realized that he had been a smarter man than even he would have thought. Somehow, after surviving the dinosaur invasion of ITV, he became something of a low-key local-level celebrity, and his parents, of course, were doing their best to capitalize on this, trying to set him up with one nice girl or another, and that was something that Danny hated.

The problem was not girls or that Danny actually liked guys (he did not). It was that those girls actually wanted to date him because he was a celebrity and not because he was himself, whatever that meant.

In addition, some (actually, most) of his fellow officers in the precinct began to haze or tease Danny about this situation, and Danny did not like that either. In fact, what Danny did like was to be left alone and to muse about his brother, and lately that simply was not possible.

And then the phone rang. "Quinn, it's for you," the police officer on duty said frankly. "Some girl."

"Tell her-"

"She knows you by name."

"Of course she does. I was on TV-"

"Now it's some bloke. Calls himself Becker."

"Give me that!" Danny snapped as he grabbed the receiver. "You ARC people-"

"Quinn," Becker did not sound very happy either. "I and the others caught a juvenile American alligator that belongs to the 21st century, but not to a London suburb. Abby believes that it was smuggled here illegally. You don't have any ideas or knowledge about this, would you?"

There was a pause as Danny turned away from the receiver and turned to face his superior, as the latter came out of his cubicle to criticize Danny. "Chief," Danny's next statement stopped the other man cold. "Remember the Gilmore-Wood case? I might've found us a lead."

/

It was some time later. Abby, Becker and Sarah were currently sitting in the ARC van, waiting for Quinn to arrive.

"This is ridiculous," Abby muttered largely to herself. "We've been here for over an hour – our dinosaur-related missions don't take so long!"

"Sure they do!" Becker replied brightly. "It's just that during that time we're usually busy running for our lives, or fighting for our lives, or hiding for our lives, or something like that." He paused. "Otherwise, yes, we're still within our usual time framework-"

"Really?" Sarah asked, half-polite and half-curious, when, with their sirens on, several police vehicles arrived. "Oh dear. Captain, I mean Becker, what did you tell them?"

"Interesting question," Becker replied, as Quinn and several other members of the police surrounded them. "Yes?"

"Where is the animal in question and where did you find it?" Quinn's apparent partner (police-wise) spoke-up.

"The alligator is with Abby over here, and we found it in the swimming pool over there," Becker said evenly. "What is going on?"

Instead of replying, the police quickly raced out towards the property in question, and they encircled it even faster, giving the swimming pool in question particular care. And then one of them knocked on the house's door, one, two, three times.

"Don't bother," Sarah said carefully. "When we catching the alligator we made quite a ruckus and nobody came from there. According to their neighbours, who are even now watching this from behind the curtains, no one has come and gone from there for the last few days."

The ex-Egyptologist spoke softly, even quietly, but the police heard her words all the same, as they stopped knocking, and instead knocked the door down.

"Oh dear," Sarah gasped as from inside came the sounds of people running around and similar noises. "What is going on?"

"Looks like a raid," Becker replied, sourly. "Abby, what have we started?"

Before Abby could reply, Danny Quinn re-appeared in the now doorless doorway. "Can you come in, please?" he told Abby. "You're the animal expert, and we could really use the expertise."

Thoroughly confused (and still holding onto the alligator), Abby went inside.

Inside, the house looked like... a regular house, except for a massive door leading into the basement, probably custom-made.

"Down there," Quinn added, carefully.

Abby still complied.

And down there...

/

"It was a mess, and not in a conventional way," Abby later reported the whole situation to her superiors (i.e. James Lester). "There were baby snakes, crocodiles, lizards... tiger skins and ivory and other organic products, as well as live animals – and they were starving. It seems that there was this group of animal smugglers who were arrested earlier this week or last weekend, I am not quite sure, but their hideout was not found until now – and we were the ones who found it, basically."

"Interesting," James Lester mused, "though unexpected. I hope that we won't be running into much of this from now on."

"Don't be too sure," Nick Cutter argued as he emerged from the lab: contrary to what Jenny may have thought, he really did look sick with a cold, rather than with some allergy. "Even before our public stunt we had similar encounters – someone's exotic pet escapes into the wild and there's a case of misidentification and all. It was rather annoying, and now that we've gone public, sort of, it's going to be worse."

"And that's why I was against this in the first place," Lester said acidly.

"Perhaps, but that proved to be something beyond _our_ control," Nick did not back down. "You and Jenny could've done something, maybe..."

"Probably not," Lester confessed. "I would've been reluctant to involve the minister even before I learned that she was a cyborg of some sort, and now - even more. That's just overkill, you know?"

Before Nick could reply, Lester's phone rang. "Yes?" the civil servant spoke into the receiver without showing off any emotion.

"Lester," Christine Johnson's voice sounded on the other end. "I've just seen the interview with the police, and guess what? Your people were involved, again, even if just on the periphery."

"Is there a point, Johnson?" James Lester asked crossly.

"Yes. What did you do with ITV's toad?"

There was a pause as Lester mentally counted to 20 and beyond. "It's not ITV's toad, it's ours," he said crossly. "That is to say, ITV generously allowed us to keep it. Considering that it's a giant toad, I cannot say that I blame them."

"In that case, can you hand it over to us so that we could send it back?"

Lester opened his mouth, took a look at his table calendar and closed. "Yes, you can," he said finally. "And you can impress the minister as well, by the way."

"Good," Christine no longer sounded smug. "Have a nice day."

"What was that all about?" Nick curiously asked.

"I know what we're going to do next week," James Lester sourly replied. "Helping Johnson impress the minister."

"Ah. Well, that's more pars for our course, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lester nodded and said nothing else.

End


	12. Chapter 9 (part 1)

**Chapter 9 (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

_Note: this story contains several major OCs._

The day turned out to be grey and cold, a forerunner of the winter to come, rather than a last memento of the autumn that had been. Needless to say, a giant toad from the middle Cretaceous, a time when the world was tropical and humid all over, did not enjoy it. Also needless to say, the ARC people who transported it from the ARC proper to the testing ground of Christine Johnson's latest invention version, well out of the city of London proper, were not in the best of mood either.

"James," Christine Johnson had hesitated slightly at calling her ARC counterpart by his name. "Those are your people?"

"Yes," Lester nodded in reply, indicating Nick, Jenny and Becker with a terse nod. "And here's the toad... I mean, Johnson, here's the giant toad."

"Ha-ha," Christine rolled her eyes. "Funny, I thought that Helen Cutter would be here-"

"She's not. I am," the minister, Geraldine de Veux, said as she appeared seemingly out of nowhere. (And since she was a cyborg in disguise, maybe she had.) "Johnson, are you ready to begin?"

"Yes ma'am," Christine blanched. The last time she and the other woman had a conversation, it almost ended very badly for the civil servant and now Christine still remained cautious around her employer. "Now that, uh, Professor Nick Cutter had given us the information about the time and place regarding the toad, we're ready to begin."

"Then proceed," the minister replied grandly.

"Right... um, right," Christine nodded, timidly, before turning her attention to her own underlings. "You heard the lady, proceed!"

"Yes ma'am," one of the scientists said quickly and typed a sequence of commands upon the control panel. There was a whirl and a shift...

...and the world changed.

/

"_Oh my_!" Jenny could only exclaim. She and the others were no longer subjected to a late November afternoon in modern England; instead, they were located in the humid tropics where strange birds, tree frogs and insects sang a rather terrible chorus. "What is this place?"

"Madagascar in the middle Cretaceous, hopefully," Nick said quietly.

"You're not sure?" the minister said sharply, still not removing her tinted shades. Considering what he had heard about her (and not just from his ex-wife) Nick did not suggest that she should remove them.

"Considering that it's still rather foggy, and palaeobotany isn't my strong suit, no," he firmly replied instead. "If we can't find some dinosaurs, it could be considered either way..."

And then the ground began to shake as the dinosaurs began to arrive – and they were of the long-necked plant-eating sauropod variety. Moving in a mighty herd and not even noticing the humans (who looked quite puny compared to them), the sauropods marched and ate without breaking strike.

"Magnificent!" Nick exclaimed as he looked upwards with a look of pure awe. "Now this – it's the times like this that I understand how Connor feels."

"Very nice," Lester said, sounding far less impressed than the other man, "but didn't the sauropods die out earlier, whatever that time period was called-"

"No," Nick shook his head with a certainly finality. "The sauropods lived throughout most of the Mesozoic, though their heyday _was_ the Jurassic. Even in the Cretaceous they continued to exist, though none of them have survived the mass extinction-"

"Yes, yes, this is fascinating," Lester shot back, when several loud – very loud – snarls interrupted him, and the carnivores appears, trailing several sauropod strugglers. Becker, for one, recognized them on the spot:

"That's the one – I mean, the one that appeared in the shopping mall, according to Connor, looked like that, or a lot like that. Connor is not the most reliable witness, usually, but does tend to get his facts straight about the dinosaurs, and so-"

"Becker, you're rumbling," Lester began to speak, only to have Cutter back the younger man up.

"No, no, he's right. Those dinosaurs _are_ abelisaurs," the paleontologist said firmly. "I cannot say with a completely precision of those are majungasaurs, the abelisaurs of Madagascar, but-"

With a loud croak a giant toad – identical to the other currently possessed by the ARC and co. jumped from beneath the legs of one of them carnivores.

"Okay, that's our proof," Lester said firmly as that carnivorous dinosaur shifted its attention to their party, sniffing the air and flexing its jaw muscles. "Johnson – Christine, release the toad and let's get out of here. The professor and others can come and visit this place later."

"On it!" Christine replied just as eagerly, and then the world shifted again.

/

Once again the modestly-sized group of people found themselves being battered by the grim winds of England in November – a very sharp contrast to the tropical island of the Cretaceous. "So," Christine said carefully to the minister, "what do you think? Have I made my- your- our- this artefact work or what?"

Instead of replying the minister just stared, and stood there very, very tensely, almost crackling with unspent power. In fact, she _was_ crackling with power, and patches of her skin and clothing were peeling away, revealing a shiny metal surface underneath them.

"Yes, you have won," a different voice spoke from the other end of the clearing. "Hello again, professor Cutter. Remember me? I was with Helen."

"Yes," Nick said tersely, as a veritable giantess – or at least very tall woman – appeared on the scene. "You're not Berenice, are you?"

"No, I'm Kurangaituku... but you can call me Kuro," the newcomer nodded as she pulled some sort of a battle-staff or a spear off her shoulder and planted it before herself. "Gigi, face it: your minion did win it, fair and square, and you know it."

"Don't call me that!" the minister snarled. "That is- this is- I seen the future, you godless fairy!"

"Don't start," Kuro said flatly. "You don't need to be particularly intelligent – and you _are_ particularly intelligent – to know that the future is fluid; all of time is fluid, and no matter how much you try, you can never fully control it."

"That's why your friend agreed to stay away," the minister spat. "She knew, she always knew-"

"Helen's got wisdom leaking out of her ears, as she sometimes says, and compared to you – it's true," Kuro grinned. "You're backing down or what?"

"Bring it," the minister ground her metal teeth and vanished in a flare of chromatic white light.

The giantess shrugged, somewhat apologetic, made a gesture with her hand, which suddenly sprouted talons, and vanished as well.

"I think that Helen, Cutter or not, has some things to tell us," Lester ground.

/

Sadly, finding Nick Cutter's ex-wife proved to be slightly trickier than the civil servant expected: she was not at her home, but after Becker called Connor for back up, it was revealed that Helen was alongside Connor and Abby and several other people at a shopping mall of some sort due to a shoe-related expedition, and if Mr. Lester wanted to, he could along, and-

"Yeah, he sounds fine," Becker told wryly the others as they converged at the mall, and found Connor outside, alongside Helen, telling something despondedly to the old woman. "See?"

"Yes," Lester grumbled as he got out and looked at the anthropologist turned time traveller turned something else right in the eye. "What the Hell is going on?"

"Abby decided to buy some new shoes, and she got Helen, and Sarah Page, and that strange Egyptian woman to come along and offer her advice," Connor replied instead. "That much shoe talk is killing me, and Helen wasn't too thrilled about it either, so we've come outside for some fresh air. You?"

For several moments James Lester just stared at the younger man, and in a manner that was not actually friendly, and then Helen stepped between them. "OK, what's the problem now?" she said in a voice that actually was not very scared.

Lester thought this over and finally asked the first thing he could think about: "Can you see the future?"

"If I concentrate on a person, I can see several possible futures, but usually the most likely one," Helen shrugged. "It's all this time anomaly radiation – it changes people, drives them insane; well, it drove me insane at any rate."

"And the future?"

"I'm talking about a literal, physical change, maybe not like Gigi's, but just as prominent," Helen shrugged. "And Stephen's death..." she trailed away.

Silence fell, and Connor Temple did his best to fill it in.

"So, time travelling gives you super powers?" he asked brightly.

"More like a superiority complex, and that's all I'm saying on this matter ever," Helen straightened up and looked both men straight in the eye. "_Ever_."

"...That's a bit of an overkill, wouldn't you agree?" sometimes Connor Temple could be either fundamentally brave or fundamentally stupid or both, and now was one of those times. "I'm sure that one of those days-"

It was then that Abby emerged with the rest of her party, carrying several large shopping bags. She looked around and saw them as well. "Hi, Mr. Lester!" she chirped brightly. "I thought that you were busy today?"

"They got over their business with a relatively less troubles than it first appeared," Helen said wryly. "By the way, Connor, maybe you should ask Jenny if she wants to join in on the fun with Abby and the others."

"Sure!" Connor said cheerily and went off to do just that.

"What about Johnson?" Lester asked just as wryly, though more quietly.

"Her?" Helen paused. "Honestly? Unlike Gigi, I do not consider you two to be some sort of matching bookends, but I really do not like her. Like, really. Therefore, you'll have to take the initiative for her on this one."

"The minister does not consider... yeah, she does, and not because she's a cyborg from the future or whenever," Lester exhaled. "Fine, I'll go and talk to Johnson, but after this-"

"That matter is closed," Helen said calmly.

James Lester was not a coward. After all, he had worked under Geraldine de Veux for several years, and even decades. That said, what Helen, formerly Cutter now Ambroise, told him, was not scary. It was final, in the same way a blackness of space is endless.

"I see," was all that he said and walked off, passing a rather confused Connor on his way.

/

"And today's the story of my life, in miniature," Christine finished telling her tale. "I strive and strive to do something great and then Lester just swoops in and steals the show. I know that you are his people and all, but still, today was in some ways the worst. Probably because the minister wanted me to fail all along."

"Eh, there are plenty of people like that in the government..."

"And that what hurts the most – _not_ that she's a cyborg, but that she's a person like that," the female civil servant looked away. "And she's my boss. You are lucky in that regard, you know? Lester, for all of _his_ flaws, isn't."

"I see," was all that Jenny could reply. Earlier, when Christine Johnson offered to take her out for coffee while the rest of the ARC field team and co. enjoyed their day out, she agreed, because shopping with Abby, Sarah Page and the retired princess of Ancient Egypt was not exactly something she enjoyed. Instead, she found herself drinking coffee with James Lester's archrival (or something like that) in the food court, and found it to be rather enjoyable, contrary to her expectations.

Well, maybe 'enjoyable' was not quite the right, but 'sympathetic' was the close second, for some of Christine Johnson's experiences were not unlike what Jenny soon-to-be-Cutter hopefully had experienced before, if it wasn't for one big elephant in the non-existent room.

"Christine," she said quietly, since the other woman asked Jenny to be on the first name basis with her. "Were you or were you not associated with Oliver Leek? Before we go anywhere else, I – and the others – need to know."

There was a pause as something like resolution slid across Christine's face. "Why?" she asked bitterly. "He was an obnoxious little weasel of a man. Why the sudden interest in him?"

"For me?" Jenny said quietly. "I helped James sort out the legal mess Leek left behind. It wasn't easy, I confess, but we know, we know-"

"Yes!" Christine said flatly in a manner not unlike that of Abby Maitland (though both would be surprised to know). "I... was associated with him. I... needed an agent in Lester's new project, just as he has his in mine, so yes, Leek was that one. But I had nothing to do with him going in an all out war on the rest of England, no."

"...I believe you," Jenny finally replied. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe you."

"Believe her about what?" Helen suddenly said.

Carefully, the other two women turned around. The ex-anthropologist was there, just as her big-tall-friend Kuro was.

"That she didn't, she wasn't involved with Oliver Leek exactly," Jenny finished firmly.

"I know that she wasn't, I just don't like her on general purposes."

"What? But I, but you," the civil servant sputtered.

"Don't," Helen said flatly. "Sometimes, you just cannot buy respect or friendship. Crassus did not learn it and died not long before the rest of the Roman republic did. You may learn and may amount to something bigger than Crassus ever had." She turned around, paused, and turned back to face the others. "Oh, and Kuro told me that Gigi agreed that you could continue your research and keep her artefact for a while, okay? Have a nice day." And with that she and Kuro were gone.

Christine Johnson was left standing there; gaping like a fish out of water, until Jenny gently grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her around:

"Coffee?"

_TBC_


End file.
